She laughed, a little sadly. "You would better stop thinking about that
for a day or so, wouldn't you?"

"Perhaps. I can't, though."

She drew up a chair and sat beside him. "I'm going to become a regular
guard, and if you don't sleep and let thinking wait, I'll scold
dreadfully."

He tossed uneasily and turned toward her, his cheeks brilliant with
fever.

"I like to hear you scold, Claire," he said. "I shall go my limit."

She rubbed her cool hand across his forehead for answer.

When he at last slept, she continued to watch by his side, rocking
slowly in her chair. It was peace for her to sit there and dream. There
was rest from her ceaseless questionings, and it was welcome rest.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE QUESTION ANSWERED.

During the days that followed Claire's attitude grew into one of
motherhood. She watched over Lawrence for the least thing she might do,
the least promise of returning health. There were times when he raved in
delirium, and she listened with a swelling heart.

One morning he began suddenly talking of himself. In broken sentences,
shapeless phrases, half finished thoughts, he unfolded a strange tale.
Claire was glad that Philip was away at work with his traps. She sat
beside Lawrence, her hands clasped, and did not miss a word.

"You see," he began one day without preliminaries, "you see, I wasn't
just given the best of chances. That was the beginning of it all. I
wasn't fairly treated." She tried to comfort him into sleep, but he did
not know she was talking to him and went on earnestly with his
unconscious revelation.

"The whole business was a squalid sort of thing banked by mountains so
grand in their rugged strength that I never got used to the dirty, dusty
little half-civilized town there on the plateau. Even as a child I felt
the intolerable difference between the place and its surroundings. Men
ought to be better up there, but they aren't. They just magnify faults
with the bigness of the hills around. Lots of it was romantic, lots of
it ought never to be lost, the frank freedom, the vital living, the joy
of uncertain victory over the dirt of the mines. It made men wild, wild
to the last degree, that ever possible stumbling into gold, pure,
glittering gold. Why, I saw it as a kid, shining like stars all over the
side of the tunnel. It made even the children mad, I think. When I
modeled rude little figures out of the red clay, I was always on the
outlook for a possible gol