“I know it,” said the young man, frowning slightly.
“You must buy it, and start afresh. I can’t have you turn rusty for want of work.”
“No, sir, it is useless. The chances are too great against the old lode being found again.”
“Not at all, boy; it is found close to the surface.”
“What!” cried Clive excitedly. “Where?”
“On the patch of old waste of limestone that I bought all those years ago, when, for a fault I never committed, I had to exile myself and come to live down here—to rot in despair, as I thought, but to find a lasting peace.”
“Oh, impossible!” cried Clive. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as a man can be who has dabbled over minerals for twenty years. There it is—a foot beneath the surface, and as rich as it was in the ‘White Virgin’ mine. The White Virgin—my dearest child—gives it to you as her dowry, the day you call her wife.”
The Major held out his hands; and as they were taken a white dress was seen fluttering on the hill side a few hundred yards away, and the Major said softly—
“She does not know it. I have left the news for you to tell. One moment: I have a stipulation to make.”