"It is wonderful, wonderful!" I could only repeat.
"My studies in the East helped me much in my work," Niall observed; "but indeed for years past the study of precious metals, and how to procure them, has been the one object of my life."
"Even should your secret come to light," I ventured to say, "surely there is enough for every one in the bowels of the earth."
"There may be," Niall cried wildly—"oh, there may be; but no one must know of it till I have got my portion! Besides, as all gold-seekers know, the gold is as uncertain as a fickle woman. Sometimes in a stream there is but a little, or there will be much in one portion of the river's bed and none at all in the other."
"Did Roderick know?" I asked.
"Never. I was but beginning my search when he went away. I would not have told him in any case. He would have wanted to share our good fortune with every one."
"Winifred knows?"
"Yes, she knows. I could trust her with my secret."
He fell into deep abstraction; and I, watching him, could scarcely realize that this quiet, thoughtful man was the same wild being who had terrified me during the storm. It showed me the fearful power of gold over the human heart, and how it was capable of changing an ordinary gentleman of studious habits into the semblance of a wild beast. He roused himself all at once to say: