“For which I am most profoundly grateful,” airily, “and a poor price for such a secret, too, so you shouldn’t mind a last payment such as I ask for now.”
“A last payment! You will be calling for more in a week.”
“I swear to you I will not. I am about to leave the city for Alaska.”
“Do you mean it?”
“As surely as the sun shines in the heavens this bright September day! Perhaps you have read, Miss Ellyson, of the wonderful gold finds in Alaska that have stirred the whole country into a fever. Well, I have joined a party to go out to the gold diggings, and I mean to make my fortune or lose my life, whichever fate wills. It will cost me a thousand dollars to get to the Klondike, so you see I shall have no means of returning from those frozen wilds till I make my pile. Surely you would not begrudge a thousand dollars to be rid of me forever?”
No, she would not. It would be a small price to pay to rid herself of this terrible incubus.
She had read in all the newspapers of the perils of the awful journey to Alaska, and she thought in her heart with joy that surely he could never return from beyond the far Yukon.
Cora had shuddered at the tales of Alaska, but now she brightened at the thought that Carey Doyle was not, indeed, likely to return from so grim a journey.
“Since you need it so much and promise never to ask for more, I will try to get the sum for you within the week,” she said, adding:
“I will send a letter to this address telling you when and how I will pay it to you. Is that satisfactory?”