'Now don't be cross, my dear Lance; you must give me time. Remember, I've been a lonely and very sad woman for years, and all thoughts of love and marriage were put out of my head. Do tell me of your escape.' 'Well, I DID escape,--which is the chief thing that concerns us now,--or I believe I should have hanged myself, like the fellow that was in my cell before me--or got shot, like two other men, for trying to clear out by day. What I suffered, no tongue can tell!'--here he assumed the most tragic expression possible, and groaned as if at the recollection,--'the very thoughts of it make my blood boil.' 'But how did this girl--Tessie Lawless, was that her name?--succeed in releasing you?' 'Well, she persuaded a man who, I believe, was pretty sweet after _her_, to come one dark night with a boat to the stern of the old hulk. She sent money and bribed my warder, so I was able to get out and drop down into the boat. After I was free, she sent a man and two horses to where I could meet them, and I came up here.' 'What a brave girl! I should like to see and thank her. She must have been a great friend of yours?' 'Well, I suppose she thought a good deal of me in her way, poor thing. I believe she's in Melbourne somewhere, but I've never seen her since.' 'You don't seem to have been very anxious to thank her for all the devotion and courage, I must say. It's the way of the world, I suppose, and Australia is very like other places in essentials, I begin to suspect. And now, what are our plans to be? It will be a risk for you to remain here longer, I suppose?' 'To be sure it will. You can't tell what may happen. Any day I might be arrested. Our dart--our plan, I mean--is to get to Melbourne as soon as possible. You can go down with Holmes Dayton and Con Gray. A policeman goes with them as escort, and, I think, Gray's sister-in-law. You couldn't have a safer party. I shall go across country towards the Murray, and travel a way of my own. We can meet in Melbourne at any place you arrange, and be married at once--that is, the day before the vessel sails that we take our passage in for San Francisco. Then we're off as Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, and no one the wiser! What do you say to that?' 'I suppose,' she answered slowly and reflectively, 'that it would be the best plan.' 'The best plan!' he repeated, almost angrily, while a sudden flash shone from his eyes, and a frown of impatience crossed his face, which brought back old memories with magical suddenness. 'Why, of course it is. There can't be any other, unless I hang on here till that infernal hound Dayrell track me down. But you don't seem to be half keen about it. Can it be'--and here he changed his voice and looked earnestly, almost pleadingly, into the girl's face--'that you have changed your mind? If you have, say so. I have lost home and friends--everything--I know. Am I to lose you too?'