"Let me talk Miss—Beth. I've got to tell you. It'll make me feel a lot easier." Beth smoothed his hand reassuringly and he clasped hers eagerly as though in gratitude. "I never was much good when I was a lad, Beth, and I never could get along even after I got married. It wasn't in me somehow. I was pretty straight as young fellows go but nothing went right for me. I was a failure. And then——"
He paused a moment with bent head but Beth didn't speak. It was all very painful to her.
"Hawk Kennedy killed your father. But I was a crook too. I left Hawk there without water to die. It was a horrible thing to do—even after what he'd done to me. My God! Maybe I didn't suffer for that! I was glad when I learned Hawk didn't die, even though I knew from that time that he'd be hanging over me like a curse. He did for years and years. I knew he'd turn up some day, I tried to forget, but I couldn't. The sight of him was always with me."
"How terrible!" whispered Beth.
"But from that moment everything I did went well. Money came fast. I wasn't a bad business man, but even a bad business man could have put that deal through. I sold out the mine. I've got the figures and I'm going to show them to you, because they're yours to see. With the money I made some good investments. That money made more money and more besides. Making money got to be my passion. It was the only thing I cared for—except my girls—and it was the only thing that made me forget."
"Please don't think you've got to tell me any more."
"Yes, I want to. I don't know how much I'm worth to-day." And then in a confidential whisper—"I couldn't tell within half a million or so, but I guess it ain't far short of ten millions, Beth. You're the only person in the world outside the Treasury Department that knows how much I'm worth. I'm telling you. I've never told anybody—not even Peggy. And the reason I'm telling you is because, you've got to know, because I can't sleep sound yet, until I straighten this thing out with you. It didn't take much persuading for Mr. Nichols to show me what I had to do when he'd found out, because everything I've got comes from money I took from you. And I'm going to give you what belongs to you, the full amount I got for that mine with interest to date. It's not mine. It's yours and you're a rich girl, Beth——"
"I won't know what to do with all that money, Mr. McGuire," said Beth in an awed voice.
"Oh, yes, you will. I've been thinking it all out. It's a deed by gift. We'll have to have a consideration to make it binding. We may have to put in the facts that I've been—er—only a sort of trustee of the proceeds of the 'Tarantula' mine. I've got a good lawyer. He'll know what to do—how to fix it."
"I—I'm sure I'm very grateful."