There were tears in her eyes, tears of anger as she thought of the old man dying with his wife weeping over him and his son going sick at the sight of the spurting blood. Drennen, watching her, marvelled at the girl. He remembered her words of the other day: "We of the blood of Paul Bellaire are not shop girls!"
In a moment she went on swiftly, the eyes turned upon Drennen very bright, a flush of excitement in her cheeks.
"My grandmother died soon after Paul Bellaire. They had just the one child, my father. He was no coward; no man ever dared say that of him; but he seemed to have none of the adventuresome blood of his parents. And yet that blood has come down to me! My father inherited the New Orleans home and a position of influence. He became a merchant and prospered. When he married my mother he was a man of considerable property. It was only when both my father and mother were dead that I came to know the story which I have told you. In one breath I learned this and that during the last years of his life my father's means had been dissipated through expensive, even luxurious, living, and a series of unwise speculations. But one heritage did come down to me … the memorandum book of my grandfather, Paul Bellaire! And it is because of that that I am here!"
"Lemarc and Sefton?" prompted Drennen.
"Marc learned the story with me. We looked over the papers together. There was a rude cryptic sort of map; I have it. It meant nothing without a key. We searched everywhere for that key. Marc pretending to aid me, had it all of the time in his hand. When he had had time to carry it away and place it where I could not find it he came back and told me that he had it. Without it the map is useless. So I compromised with Marc, since there was no other way, and he came with me. And Captain Sefton?" She frowned and her voice was hard as she concluded: "Marc has, I think, all of the vices of our blood without its virtues. Through gambling debts and other obligations he was in a bad way. Captain Sexton has him pretty well at his mercy. So, just as I let Marc in, Marc was forced to allow Sefton to become the third member of our party."
A wild enough tale, certainly, and yet Drennen doubted no word of it. Wilder things have been true. And, perhaps, no words issuing from that red mouth of Ygerne's would have failed to ring true in her lover's ears.
"You said that I could help?"
"Yes." Again there was that glint of eagerness in her eyes; no doubt the old Bellaire fortune of minted gold and jewels in their rich settings shone in dazzling fashion before her stimulated fancy. "We have found the spot; it is in a cañon not twenty miles from here. But, at some time during the last ten winters, there have been heavy landslides. The whole side of a mountain has slipped down, covering the place where, on the map, there is the little cross which spells treasure. It will take money, much money, for the excavation. And Marc and Captain Sefton and I have no money. We may dig for months, but at last …"
"I'll finance it," said Drennen steadily. "If you will allow me, Ygerne? I'd do so much more than just that for you! I am afraid it will have to wait until I can have sold my claim. Then you can have what you want, five thousand, ten thousand …"
She had sprung to her feet, her arms flung out about his neck.