Nobody shouted but the cashier. Dan sat in a stupor, and Biddy was weeping, with one arm flung around Dan's neck. Dan was turning his hat around on his fingers and staring at Clement's face for some solution to the situation. It was beyond his imagination.
Clement did not speak again for some moments. When he did his voice was husky and tremulous with emotion. "You notice I say quarter interest—that's because there is a new member in the firm now. She comes in to-morrow. I want you to see how she looks." He extended a picture of Ellice to Biddy. She made a marvelous dramatic shift of features, and a smile of admiration broke through the red of her broad countenance.
"Oh, the swate, blessed angel. Sure, she's beautiful as one of the saints in the church. Luk at her, Dan."
"I'm lukin'. She's none too good for him."
"Don't say that, Dan!" Clement protested in an earnest tone. "All you have to-night you owe to her. All the best thoughts in me to-day I owe to her."
CHAPTER II
There remained to him now all the joy of riding back to tell her of his purification of soul. His heart was so joyous it kept time to every happy song in the world.
The gloom and doubt of himself had passed away, but the wonder and mystery of woman's love for man remained. He felt himself to be an honest man, but a man big, crude and coarse compared to her beauty and delicacy. He marveled at her bravery and her magnanimity. Leaving Susanna he leaped upon a fresh horse and set off, riding fast toward the divide. The wind had risen and was blowing from the dim domes of the highest mountains—a cold wind, and he would have said a sad wind had his heart not been so light. As it was, he lifted his bared forehead to it exultantly.