Jim demurred, but Ryder led him on to the narrative, and eventually he described his past, and as he talked of the old troubles and tribulations, his former prejudices awoke, and something of the early hatred and disdain.  Ryder, quick to detect the effect of the revival of his boyish grievances, kept the young man’s thoughts on the more painful features of the story, and worked upon his feelings guilefully probing his soul, finding his weaknesses with an unerring touch, prompted, no doubt, by his knowledge of Richard Done, the man he had been, whose youthful character he found faithfully reflected here.

‘You’ll come with me?’ said Ryder.

‘No, I couldn’t do it,’ answered Jim.  ’Your idea of vengeance strikes me only as the dream of a madman.’

‘But you’ll think it over?’

’You don’t suppose a man can get this sort of thing out of his mind in a day.’

‘Remember, I bind you to nothing, and there is a big fortune at stake.’

Got by crime.’

‘By open, honest daylight robbery.’

Jim looked at his brother with a feeling of despair; he recognised the utter hopelessness of argument based on accepted ideas of right and wrong.  In disputing he felt like a child blowing bubbles against a stone wall.  Ryder’s attitude implied that he had tested everything in the fire of a terrible experience.

‘Man, man!’ cried Done, ‘how can you hope to beat the world?’

’For four years I have beaten it.  And I am appreciated.  The Government of Victoria has just raised the price of my head to one thousand pounds.’

‘Why not leave the country at once?’

‘As soon as you are ready.’

‘Impossible.  I will not go.’

’I remain until you change your mind, unless, in the meantime, some safe and convenient means of transporting my hard-earned gold presents itself.  I have an alternative scheme, but it means greater risks, and, besides, I find I am still capable of the preposterous folly of liking.  I like you.’

’Then give up this brutal scheme, join with me, make an effort to work the poison out of your blood, to revive a clean, honest interest in existence, and I’ll stand by you through thick and thin, against the law and all your enemies, while I’ve a heart-beat left in me.  It’s worth the effort, Dick; the world is fair, men are decent, and women are sweet.’

Ryder sat nursing a foot, smiling a smile of kindly interest.  ‘My boy,’ he said, ’you have the ardent sentimentality of a good mother’s pink-cheeked cub of nineteen.  Has it occurred to you that I have run a very great risk in being seen for five minutes in your company?  Your name is Done, and you made the name rather familiar along Forest Creek; we are alike, as you have noted, and although Richard Done, the escaped convict, is not much thought of at this date, it is certain that hearing your name awakened recollection amongst the old Vandemonians in the police here, and they have probably run the rule over you more than once.  If I were to join with you, they’d clap the darbies on me within a week.’