“You are wrong,” she answered, with a touch of scorn in her voice.  “I love him more now than ever.”  Then, before her father could stop her, she placed her arms round her lover’s neck, and kissed him wildly.

“My darling,” she said, with the tears streaming down her white cheeks, “whatever the world may say, you are always dearest of all to me.”

Brian kissed her passionately, and moved away.  Madge fell down at her father’s feet in a dead faint.

CHAPTER XI.

COUNSEL FOR THE PRISONER.

Brian Fitzgerald was arrested at a few minutes past three o’clock, and by five all Melbourne was ringing with the news that the perpetrator of the now famous hansom cab murder had been caught.  The evening papers were full of the affair, and the Herald went through several editions, the demand being far in the excess of the supply.  Such a crime had not been committed in Melbourne since the Greer shooting case in the Opera House, and the mystery by which it was surrounded, made it even more sensational.  The committal of the crime in such an extraordinary place as a hansom cab had been startling enough, but the discovery that the assassin was one of the most fashionable young men in Melbourne was still more so.  Brian Fitzgerald being well known in society as a wealthy squatter, and the future husband of one of the richest and prettiest girls in Victoria, it was no wonder that his arrest caused some sensation.  The Herald, which was fortunate enough to obtain the earliest information about the arrest, made the best use of it, and published a flaming article in its most sensational type, somewhat after this fashion:—­

HANSOM CAB TRAGEDY.  ARREST OF THE SUPPOSED MURDERER.  STARTLING REVELATIONS IN HIGH LIFE.

It is needless to say that some of the reporters had painted the lily pretty freely, but the public were ready to believe everything that came out in the papers.

Mr. Frettlby, the day after Brian’s arrest, had a long conversation with his daughter, and wanted her to go up to Yabba Yallook Station until the public excitement had somewhat subsided.  But this Madge flatly refused to do.

“I’m not going to desert him when he most needs me,” she said, resolutely; “everybody has turned against him, even before they have heard the facts of the case.  He says he is not guilty, and I believe him.”

“Then let him prove his innocence,” said her father, who was pacing slowly up and down the room; “if he did not get into the cab with Whyte he must have been somewhere else; so he ought to set up the defence of an alibi.”

“He can easily do that,” said Madge, with a ray of hope lighting up her sad face, “he was here till eleven o’clock on Thursday night.”

“Very probably,” returned her father, dryly; “but where was he at one o’clock on Friday morning?”