unset, he saw her as she sat among her soft
silks and dainty flowers. Her lovely eyes and the exquisite texture of
her skin grew more and more wonderful to him. The touch of his lips to
hers came to seem an act of pollution, almost of envenoming, as he
brooded on his unworthiness.

He wrote a note to her on the impulse of the moment. The missive read:

"I am not fit to see you, to touch you. I am going away
across the divide to make restitution for a great wrong I
have done. If I do not I can never face you again. When I
see you again I will be an honest man, or I--if you think me
worthy of forgiveness I will see you and ask it to-morrow.
RICHARD."

He added as a postscript:

"I am well. I am not crazy, but I am not an honest man. I
can't kiss you again till I am."

Upon reading this note he saw it would frighten her, and keep her in
agony of suspense, therefore he tore it up, and rushing out of the
house leaped into the saddle.

The spirited little broncho was fresh and mettlesome, and went off in
a series of sheeplike bounds which her rider seemed not to notice.

He drew rein at the telegraph office, and there sent three telegrams.
They were all alike:

"Meet me at the office at midnight. Important."

As he turned Susanna's head up the trail the mountains stood deep
purple silhouettes against the cloudlessness of the sky. The wind blew
from the heights cool and fragrant, and the little horse set nostril
to it as if she anticipated and welcomed the hard ride.

The way lay over forbidding mountain passes ten thousand feet above
the sea, and her rider was a heavy man. But Susanna was of broncho
strain with a blooded sire, which makes the hardiest and swiftest
mountain horse in the world.

Clement's mind cleared as he began the ascent--cleared but did not
rest. Over and over the problem came, each time clearer and more
difficult. He must that night give away a hundred and thirty-five
thousand dollars--terrible ordeal! Ninety thousand dollars to go to an
old Irishman and his wife--both ignorant, careless.

What would they do with it? It might drive them crazy. As they now
lived they were comfortable. He had made Dan sub-superintendent of the
mine, and he had rebuilt the eating-house for Biddy. Could they take
care of the big fortune he was about to give them?

Ought he not to give them a few thousands--such sum as they