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"I've been talking an awful lot of rot about myself," Dominey said "Tell me a little about your career now and your life in Gerastein made no immediate reply, and a curious silence ebbed and flowed between the two men Every now and then a star shot across the sky The red riher from behind the mountains The bush stillness, always the ed with unvoiced passion Soon the ani nearer and nearer to the fire which burned at the end of the open space

"My friend," Von Ragastein said at last, speaking with the air of a man who has spent much time in deliberation, "you speak to uessed that it is not duty alone which has brought edy"

Dominey's quick impulse of sympathy was smothered by the stern, almost harsh repression of the other's manner The words seemed to have been torn froret in his set face

"Since the day of my banishment," he went on, "no word of this ht it is not weakness which assails e are friends, though sons of a different country, meet here in the wilderness, each with the iron in our souls I shall tell you the thing which happened to me, and you shall speak to roaned

"But you will," was the stern reply "Listen"

An hour passed, and the voices of the twoof the ani of the fires, and a slow, h the bush and lapping the surface of the river It was Von Ragastein who broke through what ht almost have seemed a trance He rose to his feet, vanished inside the banda, and reappeared a moment or two later with two tumblers One he set down in the space provided for it in the aruest's chair

"To-night I break what has become a rule with me," he announced "I shall drink a whisky and soda I shall drink to the new things that may yet come to both of us"