"Can it be that they are still ignorant of that fact?" Maud mentally asked herself; and then she began to wonder why the Estills had shown the locket, with its pictures of Bruce and his wife, and withheld from her parents the more important secret that Mora was also the daughter of those ill-fated friends; but her reflections were cut short by her father saying, with a weary sigh:—
"Ah! this is the sting of poverty indeed! Oh, why should I have been so ill-fated as to lose two fortunes in succession?"
"George, do not grieve over the past; that's beyond recall," Mrs. Warlow said gently; then she added: "It is better that my children should confine themselves to their own sphere; for you can see that if Miss Estill loved my boy, as well she might, for himself alone, she would never think of the difference in their wealth. It may save them a life-time of misery; for without mutual love, matrimony would be a state of abject servitude."
"Well, if Clifford sees fit to take a change of scene, it will serve to cure him of his—attachment; and if Mora, in the meantime, discovers her mistake in undervaluing Clifford—a fellow that any girl under the sun might be proud of—why, it may all come out right yet," said Maud as she rose from the table and began to polish and clean the great silver coffee-urn, another relic of old plantation glory, but which had never been considered too good for every-day service.
All day Clifford worked with a fever of energy to prepare for his journey, which he was compelled to do; for the picnic was set for the coming day, Friday, and he had to see the Morelands to secure their attendance with him at the land-office as witnesses to prove his actual residence and cultivation upon his homestead, which he had concluded to commute, or in other words, pay the sum of two hundred dollars to the government in lieu of five years of residence and cultivation thereon. Having secured their testimony, or their willing promise to accompany him to Abilene and there testify to his good faith, etc., he made everything ready for his departure the next morning after the picnic.
When Maud and his mother questioned him regarding the destination and duration of his trip, he said he would go South awhile, but evaded telling them that he had determined to go to Buenos Ayres and remain until he had made a fortune that would cause Miss Estill to regard him as an equal.
He noticed the sadness, however, of the family, and when he met Rob's look of grief his fortitude was sorely tried, and he regretted having formed such a hasty resolution. But it was too late now to retreat, he foolishly concluded; so, choking down a lump in his throat, he walked out to take a last view of his farm. As he sauntered along in a listless way, looking at the fields, every furrow of which he had turned over in the past with such a deep pride of ownership; at the trees and deep pools, that greeted him with the air of old friendship, he began to realize how dear the place had become, and he wondered, in a self-pitying way, how he could bear the existence that awaited him out on the sky-begirt level and lonely pampas of the Rio La Plata.
When he came to the gothic dwelling, the circle of roses and trellises of luxuriant vines, the sloping orchard and vineyard, they all seemed to be still imbued with the strange thought which had ever haunted him while he was busied there. "Here for the first time since eternity began, I found a true home. All this is mine, and on this spot I shall pass my life. What events will transpire here in the unknown future! I shall know joy and sorrow here, but who will share it all with me?" As these visions recurred, he thought bitterly that he never had counted upon an hour of trial like the present. Then, throwing himself down in the shade of the old wall, he cried aloud in anguish, as he buried his face in the soft, matted buffalo-grass: "Oh, it is hard to part from all this—and only for a woman who cares nothing for me!" But at length he became calmer, and as a feeling of resentment towards the proud heiress began to possess him, he arose and went into the house: then, after taking the usual precautions against surprise, he raised the trap-door and unlocked the treasure-chest.
On glancing at the heap of red gold mingled with the dazzling gems, he took from the compartment the paper which he had almost forgotten having never read; then breaking the seal, he found that it was the wills of both Bruce and his wife on separate sheets of vellum, executed at Santa Fe, devising all their estate each to the other, in case of either dying during the long journey on which they were about starting.
"I will bring her here to-morrow. She shall read the pathetic Journal of Ivarene and this will. I shall tell her of the long search after the treasure, and her right to all this wealth; then, after restoring both her name and fortune, there will be little left for me to do but to slink away, while some long-necked aristocrat will step to the foreground and carry off the prize," soliloquized our hero with bitter sarcasm, as he placed the papers in an inner pocket of his drab coat, and closed the chest with a vicious snap.