Close to me at the door she stood. The old man was outside, waiting to go with me to the railway station. She bowed her head and I kissed her hair.
CHAPTER XX.
The sun had just gone down, and a man was beating a triangle to announce that it was lodge-night, when I stepped upon the sidewalk in front of Conkwright's office. The old man was locking his door. I spoke to him and he turned about, and, seeing me, merely nodded, threw open the door and bade me go in. "Mighty glad you've got back," he said. "They are going to bring that trial on right away, and it will be none too soon for us, I assure you. Let me open this window. Been about as hot a day as I ever felt. Well, what have you got to say?"
"So much that I scarcely know how to begin."
He grunted. "The prelude to an unimportant story. But, go on."
Long before I was done with my recital he sat with his eyes wide open, seeming to wonder whether my reason had slipped a cog.
"Wonderful," he said. "No, it is not wonderful, nothing is wonderful. The mere fact that a thing happens proves that there is about it no element of the marvelous. It is the strange thing that does not occur. When it does occur it ceases to be strange. And you say he will be here to-morrow? Now, you let me take charge of him as soon as he arrives. If you don't he will not only get the mine for nothing, but will go away with your eye teeth. I'll go home to-night and study up this question, and by to-morrow night I'll know more about it than he does. Yes, sir, a good deal more, or at least make him think so. You were long-headed in deciding to slip out there and buy more land, and by the way, Parker is in town. No, sir, there is no telling what may happen. See Parker to-night and meet me here to-morrow morning."
I found Alf reading a letter which Millie had contrived to send him. Under the light of the smoky lamp his face looked sallow and thin, but his eyes were full of happiness. "She's got the noblest spirit that ever suffered, and noble spirits must suffer," he said as he handed me the letter. "See, she begs my forgiveness for having kept me on the gridiron. But doesn't one letter atone for a whole year of broiling? Ah, and you have been broiled, too, haven't you, Bill? Now let them put the balm on us. The Judge tells me that I am soon to be turned out, and I'll come out wiser than I was when I came in, for I have improved my time with reading. Have you heard from the folks?"
I told him my story, and I told it quietly, but it greatly excited him, and time and again he thrust his hands through the iron lattice to grasp me. "So you will go out not only wiser, but a richer man," I said. "You will not have to go into a field and plow in the blistering heat while other men are sitting in the shade. All our trouble has been for the best, and with deep reverence we must acknowledge it. And soon we will go together out to the old place and peacefully smoke our pipes up under the rafters. Well, I have left you the subject for a pleasant dream, and I must go now to look for Parker. As I said to your father, there is no telling how much money we may get, but whatever comes we share."