“It should be.” The man laughed without mirth.
“Should be? It is.”
The girl’s enthusiasm was met with a shake of the head.
“I thought that way, little girl. I guess the notion set me nigh crazy. The sort of junk I handed up to the gods of fortune would have set you laffing if you’d seen into my head when I knew about the thing we’d hit. That was at first. Then I came along down to home and stood up on that hill and took a peek below. There was the wreck. It’s the wreck of the ship that was bringing your Jim home. And then I guess the gods for fortune must have got worried. I hadn’t a notion of handing ’em up any more junk. The whole darn thing left me cold. I told myself right there ther’s bigger things in life than simple success. Much bigger! And amongst ’em, and maybe biggest of ’em all is the woman who reckons to move along down the trail of life with you, and all the things that go to make up her life. Her sufferings are yours, her joys and sorrows, and—and—no, little kid, the sight of that wreck got me right away. And I knew that the other didn’t matter. I wasn’t through with my work. I’d still got it to do. And so I came along. And that’s why I didn’t get around, for all I was crazy to, until now.”
The girl’s eyes had grown very tender as she listened to the queer rough tones of this man as he unconsciously laid bare his soul to her. There was no smiling response. Only a nod. But it told McLagan all he wanted to know. She, too, was caught again in the terrible tragedy that had robbed her of a brother.
“You’re the first to hear these things,” he went on quietly. “Not a soul else in Beacon knows a thing. Not even Victor, at the Bank. No, I kept it for you. And you’re going to keep it close till I say. I’ve been on the dead run. I’ve been so busy ... but, there, little girl, there’s things I can tell you and things I can’t. Maybe there’s some things you’ll never know. It don’t matter. The thing I want to hand you right away is we’ve had word from Len Stern. Goodchurch sent out word about that ship. He asked about it. And the authority told him she was supposed lost in mid-ocean. That was that. We knew. We’d got that. But we were playing big. I guessed our only chance of things was a hope of the message getting to Len Stern, if he was alive. It did. The news sheets took up our inquiry and it found him in Perth, Western Australia. He cabled Goodchurch he was sailing just after I’d set out for the hills. Two weeks back Goodchurch got word from Seattle. The boy would be along up right away. We figure he’ll be at the coast to-morrow and I’m going right down to meet him. I want his story bad. I want it. And when I got that, maybe——”
He broke off, and a deep, almost savagely brooding light was shining in his contemplative eyes as he surveyed the table that still contained the litter of the needlework with which Claire passed so much of her leisure.
“Won’t you tell me, Ivor? Can’t you?” The girl had reached out, and, for a moment, one of her hands rested on his, supported on the arm of his chair.
McLagan shook his head and the girl’s hand was withdrawn.