She could not bear it any longer. With a cry of joy she was in his arms.
After a moment he said, “The best of all was, that you—you vixen, you bet on that Derby and won, and—”
“With your money, remember, Shiel.”
“With my money!” he cried exultingly. “Yes, that’s the best of it—the next best of it. It was your betting that was the best of all—the best thing you ever did since we married, except your coming here.”
“It’s in time to help you, too—with your own money, isn’t it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Hours—I’m hours to the good. That crowd—that gang of thieves—that bunch of highwaymen! I’ve got them—got them, and got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, too, to start again at home, at Lammis, Mona, back on the—but no, I’m not sure that I can live there now after this big life out here.”
“I’m not so sure, either,” Mona replied, with a light of larger understanding in her eyes. “But we’ll have to go back and stop the world talking, and put things in shape before we come here to stay.”
“To stay here—do you mean that?” he asked eagerly.
“Somewhere in this big land,” she replied softly; “anyhow, to stay here till I’ve grown up a little. I wasn’t only small in body in the old days, I was small in mind, Shiel.”
“Anyhow, I’ve done with betting and racing, Mona. I’ve just got time left—I’m only thirty-nine—to start and really do something with myself.”