As he stooped to recover it his eyes encountered those of the picture gazing upward through the half-light. A flickering tongue of flame flared brightly for a moment and illumined the features, bringing out their expression with startling distinctness.
It was the face of the girl. The flame died out, leaving the pictured likeness half concealed in the soft semi-darkness of the dying embers.
It seemed hours that the man sat motionless, staring into the upturned eyes—those eyes into which he had so often gazed, but which were now lost to him forever. And as he looked, other thoughts crowded his brain; thoughts of his father, and the scorn of their parting; thoughts of the girl, of her words, and of his own boast: "I can beat the game! And I will beat it—now!... And some day you will know."
His anger rose against the man whose own flesh and blood he was, who had driven him from home with words of bitter sarcasm, and against the girl and her sneering repudiation of him. He leaped to his feet and shook a clenched fist to the southward:
"I told you I would make good!" he roared, "and, by God, I will! I am a McKim—do you hear? I am a McKim—and I shall make good!"
He reached for the bottle and placed it beside him on the pine table. He did not pour out the whisky, for he did not fear it—only if he drank it need he fear.
Just one little drink, and he was lost—and he knew this. And now he knew that he would never take that drink—and he looked at the bottle and laughed—laughed as the girl had laughed when she sent him from her forever.
"It's no go, old boy," he smiled, apostrophizing John Barleycorn. "I served you long—and well. But I quit. You would not believe that I quit, and came out here to get me. And you almost got me. Almost, but not quite, John, for I have quit for good and all. We can still be friends, only now I am the master and you are the servant, and to start out with, I am going to pour half of you over my blistered feet."
He recovered the packet from the floor and looked long at the picture. "And some day you will know," he repeated, as he returned it to his pocket.
Thus did the lonely girl in a far distant city unconsciously win a silent victory for the man she loved—and who loved her.