The Everlasting Whisper

"It's done!" whispered Mark, bending over her. "You are mine now; mine for all time, Gloria. And, girl of mine," he added reverently, "may God deal with me as I deal with you."

"It's done!" In an awed little voice came Gloria's response, like an echo. Mark King had seen her across the quicksands.

Jim and the "judge" had gone. They two were alone in the still house. Gloria was nervous; King could see that and thought that he understood. So he went for wood, made a cheery blaze in the fireplace, and drew two chairs up to it.

"Tell me about papa's letter," said Gloria hastily Had there not been that obvious topic she would have caught at another, any other. "He didn't tell me how badly he was hurt or what had happened."

King put out his hand for hers, and while Gloria looked into the fire and he looked into her face, he told her. At the end he brought out Gus Ingle's Bible and read to her what was written in it. All the time that his eyes were occupied she watched him eagerly, a little anxiously. But by the time he had finished she had been intrigued for the moment out of her own self-centred thoughts, her fancies caught by all that underlay this crude tale of treasure and murder, of lust for gold, of treachery and lonely death.

"And you know where it is?"

"I can go to it as straight as a string. Two days to get to it and to stake a claim; two days to come out with a couple of horses loaded to the guards. And that itself means a fortune, if it's clean, raw gold, as would seem to be the case. We need not fear the poorhouse, you and I, Mrs. King!"

"But Brodie? And Mr. Gratton?"

"They don't know where it is! They can't know, since we've got the Bible, and Honeycutt was dead before they got to him! If they knew they would have been on their way already. And I'll be striking out before dawn, leaving no such trail that they can follow it in a hurry, even if they should seek to. No; Brodie and Gratton and the rest of them have lost the game!"

"You are going so soon? Papa wanted that?"

"He wanted me to telephone as soon as I got this." He rose, lingering over her. "We mustn't forget him, even for our own happiness." He brushed her hair with his lips; he hastened the few steps to the telephone in Ben's study.