“Well, go on,” she said, “but if your old mine blows up─”
“I wish it would!” he burst out passionately. “If it would make any difference, I wish it was blown off the map. I can’t bear to fight you, Virginia; it makes my life miserable, and I’ve tried to be friendly from the first. But is it right to blame a man for something he can’t help and not even give him a chance to explain? If you think I’ve stolen your mine, why, go ahead and say so and let me give it back. I’ll do it, so help me God, if you’ll only say the word.”
200“What word?” she asked, and he threw out his hands in a helpless appeal to her pity.
“Any word,” he said, “so long as it’s friendly. But I just can’t stand it to be without you!”
“Oh,” she said, and looked back up the trail as if meditating another dash to escape.
“Well, what is it?” he asked at last. “Won’t you even listen to me? I’ve got a plan to propose.”
“Why, certainly,” she responded, “go ahead and tell it. And then, when it’s done, can I go?”
“Yes, you can go,” he answered eagerly, “if you’ll only just listen reasonably and think what this means to us both. We used to be friends, Virginia, and while I was working up this deal I did everything I could to help you. I didn’t have much money then or I’d have done more for you, but you know my heart was right. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you. But the minute I got the mine it seems as if everybody turned against me–and you turned against me, too. That hurt me, Virginia, after what I’d tried to do for you, but I know you had your reasons. You blamed me for things that I never had done and–well, you wouldn’t even speak to me. But that was all right–it was perfectly natural–and on Christmas I sent you back your stock. I only bought it from Charley to help you get to Los Angeles, and I considered that I was holding it in trust; so I sent it back by Charley, but I suppose he made some break, because I found it on 201my table that night. But you’ll take it back now; won’t you, Virginia?”
His voice broke like a boy’s in the earnestness of his appeal and yet it was hopeless, too, for he saw that she stood unmoved. He waited for an answer, then as she shifted her feet impatiently he went on with dogged persistence. It was useless, he knew it; and yet, sometime in the future, she might recall what he had said and take advantage of it.
“Well, all right, then,” he assented, “but the stock’s yours if you want it. I’m holding it for you, in trust. But now here’s what I wanted to tell you–I’d hoped we could do it together; but you ought to do it, anyway. You know that stock that your mother lost to Blount? Well, I know how you can get it back.”