used from weakness, Covington glanced across to Gorham.

"Her story doesn't differ much from that contained in the affidavit," he
remarked.

"No," Gorham answered, shortly; "it is the same story with a different
interpretation."

"What do you think of it now?"

"Just as I have from the beginning."

"You don't believe me!" Eleanor cried, half-beseechingly,
half-reproachfully. "I don't wonder,--it is past belief."

"You must believe her, daddy," Alice insisted, ready to burst into
tears; "she has tried so many times to tell you."

"I do believe you, Eleanor," Gorham replied. "And what is more, I know
that you speak the truth."

"The public may not be so generous," suggested Covington.

"You forget that I have great faith in that same public," Gorham
answered, strangely calm in the face of such great provocation.

"You know it, Robert?" Eleanor asked, scarcely believing what she heard.
"How can you know it? You mean that your faith in me is strong enough to
make you believe it."

"You may tell them that story, Covington," Gorham said, rising; "but it
will make it even more interesting if you add the finale which you are
going to witness now."

Then he turned to his wife and took her hand in his.

"Would you know that prospector if you saw him again?" he asked.

"I am sure I should," she replied, wonderingly.

"Must he still wear his full beard and his old corduroy clothes, with a
blue handkerchief knotted around his throat, to recall himself to you?
Must I tell you that he called himself 'Roberts'?"

"Roberts!" she gasped, gazing at him spellbound, "--how could you know?"

"Look at me again, Eleanor," he urged with infinite tenderness, but with
an eager expectancy manifest in every feature,--"look hard."

She drew back speechless as the truth came to her.

"Oh, my Robert," she cried at last, with a joy in her voice which
thrilled her hearers, "you--you were that man!"

It seemed a sacrilege to the two spectators of the unexpected climax of
this intimate personal drama to remain, so instinctively they both
withdrew silently to the drawing-room, leaving Eleanor closely enfolded
in her husband's arms. For the first time since Covington had disclosed
himself, Alice was alone with him. Wrought up as the girl had been by
the conflicting emotions which had consumed her strength during the past
moments, and relieved beyond measure by the final outcome of what had
promised only a tragedy, yet her eyes fill