Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/78

 cigars; and Young alone had professed to prefer his own pipe.

Young made no answer now.

"You hate him!" pursued Irralie, in a low, excited voice. "Why should you? How do you dare?"

"Dare!" said the other softly.

No retort could have stung Irralie more.

"Then presume," she said. "Yes, presume is the better word for you. You do presume when you take a scunner against a man you know nothing about!"

"A man I know nothing about! That's it—exactly."

He turned, and walked toward the pines. She followed him until their ordinary voices were out of earshot of the veranda. At the wire fence they stopped, and Irralie turned upon him with subdued fury.

"At all events you know who he is!" "Who is he?"

"You know as well as I do that he's the son of an Earl—Lord Fullarton!"

For one moment she thought his smile a