Page:Outlawandlawmak00praegoog.djvu/324

312. I was better suited for him. . . . What does it matter to her?" The poor woman wandered on. "She will be glad after a little while that he is dead. They never could have been happy. If she had been a different woman he wouldn't have wanted me. He did want me. I don't know what would have come of it. I suppose we should have gone off together; he asked me to go; it was almost settled—yesterday, as we rode out. And now he is dead. And what is to become of me? I worshipped him—I would have died for him. You should be sorry for me."

"I am sorry for you," said Lady Waveryng. "I will take care of you. I will shield you. Only for your own sake—for his sake don't betray him now that he is dead; and remember that he was my favourite brother, and that if you mourn him as having lost your all, I too have lost almost the dearest thing in the world to me."

Mrs. Allanby grew more composed. Gradually she sank into a silent, tearless condition, keeping close to Lady Waveryng while arrangements were being made for taking the dead man to the camp. It was Frank Hallett who organized these. A rough litter was prepared, on which the body was laid, and they carried it in turns through the gorges and along the scrub to the point where the horses were waiting.

Trant stood motionless against the wall of the old crater. Elsie, strengthened by the brandy she had drunk, left him and walked on, determined to take the bearings of her prison. She walked steadily, examining every inch of the wall for an opening. She even looked for some little zig-zag path, some crumbling of the stone, some wallaby hole, but there was none. For the most part the wall was of naked rock, with here and there patches of hanging creepers, and as the sun lowered so long was the shadow it cast that she supposed the wall to be two or three hundred feet in height. She had walked almost round the enclosure when she at last saw an opening, leading she imagined into the