pon
her," I said; "and I want you to promise me that----"

In the midst of all this Barrett had turned aside, swearing under his
breath, which was his only way, I took it, of letting me know how it
was rasping him. But now he whirled upon me and broke in savagely:

"Stop it, you damned maniac! If you have lived with Polly Everton a
whole month and don't know her any better than that, you ought to be
shot! She is waiting now to have her chance at you, and I'm not going
to take any more of her time." Then he went soft again: "You keep a
stiff upper lip, and we'll get you out of this if we have to retain
every lawyer this side of New York!"

Polly came so soon after Barrett left that I knew she must have been
waiting in the corridor. Cummings was considerate enough to shift his
smoking-seat to the other window and to turn his back upon us. All the
cynics in the world to the contrary notwithstanding, there is a tender
spot in the heart of every man that was ever born, if one can only be
fortunate enough to touch it.

"_My darling_!" That is what she said when I took her in my arms; and
for a long minute nothing else was said. Then she drew away and held
me at arm's length, and there was that in her dear eyes to make me feel
like the soldier who faces the guns with a shout in his heart and a
song on his lips, knowing that death itself cannot rob him of the Great
Recompense.

"You needn't say one word--Jimmie--_my husband_! I have known it all,
every bit of it, from the first--from that Sunday morning when Daddy
took me over to your mine," she whispered. "I--I loved you, dearest,
when I was only a foolish little school-girl, and your sister and I
have exchanged letters ever since Daddy and I left Glendale. So I
knew; knew when they sent you to prison for another man's crime, and
knew, even better than your mother and sister did, why you let them do
it. Oh, Jimmie!"--with a queer little twist of the sweet lips that was
half tears and half smile--"if you could only know how wretchedly
jealous I used to be of Agatha Geddis!"

"You needn't have been!" I burst out. "But you don't know it all.
Last winter--in Denver----"

She nodded sorrowfully.

"Yes, dear; I knew that, too. I knew that Agatha Geddis was using you
again--against your will; and that this time she had a cruel whip in
her hand. We had all heard of the broken parole; it was in the home
newspapers, and, besides, your sister wrote me about it."