"They have told me all kinds of things ever since I was a child. When did you find it out?" Elsie's voice lifted a little.
"The very first day I reached St. Marys, almost the first hour." He was wondering inwardly why he should talk thus to any one.
"I'm so glad," she answered contentedly, "because they must have told you to do many things, and you've done them. But I can't half answer what they say to me."
Clark studied her silently. Her face was not only beautiful but supremely intelligent, and had, moreover, the signet of imagination. She was, he concluded, utterly truthful and courageous.
"I wonder you get time to come here at all," she hazarded after a thoughtful pause.
"It is time well spent." He pointed to the heaped crests in midstream. "The solution of many a problem lies out there; I've got one to think of now."
Had Elsie been an ordinary girl she would have disappeared forthwith, but between them sped something that convinced her that he wanted her to stay.
"Am I allowed to know what it is?"
"It's this." Clark took a fragment of rock from his pocket and laid it in her palm.
"What is it?" she said curiously.