ead as she remembered that it was at
his instigation she had detained Alton. Still, though she realized
that this could not be wholly forgotten, she took her part of the
blame, and felt sorry for the harassed man whose anxieties were
intensified by his solicitude for her welfare. He was in difficulties,
his health was failing, and she decided upon an attempt at
reconciliation. The respect she had cherished for him could never be
quite restored, but she could be a more sympathetic daughter, and help
him to bear his troubles. Then as she glanced down across the inlet
with eyes that grew softer, Forel and his wife came up through the
garden.

"Still alone?" he said. "Where is your father?"

"I think he is in your room," said the girl. "Mr. Hallam came in to
see him."

"Hallam? Now I wonder----" said Forel, and stopped, but Alice
Deringham had seen his face, and being a woman took instinctive warning.

"I don't think he wanted anything of importance, and he was only in a
minute or two," she said.

They went in together, but Forel was behind the girl, when she pushed
open a door and then stopped just inside it. Deringham was sitting
before a table, and there was something that perplexed her in his
attitude. He seemed curiously still, and his head had fallen forward.

"Father," she said, and her heart beat a trifle faster, for Deringham
did not move.

His face was not visible, and moving forward she grew suddenly faint
and cold as she touched his shoulder. There was no response from the
man, and she now noticed that he seemed huddled together; but she saw
nothing more, for just then a hand was laid upon her arm. Shaking off
the grasp, she turned and saw her growing horror reflected in Forel's
face.

"You must come away, my dear," he said hoarsely.

Alice Deringham shivered, but she stood very straight a moment, staring
down with dilated eyes at the grim figure in the chair.

"Touch him. Speak to him," she said in a voice that set Forel's nerves
on edge, and then as the last faint hope died away, stretched out her
hands with a little half-choked cry.

"Come away," said Forel very huskily.

He was sensible that the girl's hand was very cold as he drew her from
the room, but he left her with his wife on the verandah and then went
back hastily. Forel was a kindly man, but he knew that speculation in
Western mines has its under-side, and it was for the girl's sake he
stripped off the top sheet of the b