Then, pinned to the scorpion-infested wall, he saw a sheet of writing, and he read:
Dear Mr. Gray:
He woke up and howled for you. It was too tragic for me. I love him but I give him to you. I give the quarry to you, also. Under the circumstances it would be impossible for me to enjoy it, even if the law awarded it to me. Nobody could ever really know which one of us first arrived and staked the claim. No doubt you did.
I am sorry I came into your life and made trouble for you and for the puppy.
[189]
So I leave you in peaceful possession. It really is a happiness for me to do it.
I am going North at once. Good-bye; and please give my love to the dog. Poor little darling, he thought we both stood in loco parentis. But he'll get over his grief for me.
Yours truly,
Constance Leslie.
The puppy at his feet was howling uncomforted for the best beloved who was so strangely missing from the delightful combination which he had so joyously accepted in loco parentis.[190]
XX
Gray gathered the dog into his arms and strode swiftly out into the sunshot, purple light of early evening.
"What a girl!" he muttered to himself. "What a girl! What a corking specimen of her sex!"
Presently he came in sight of her, and the puppy scrambled violently until set down. Then he bolted for Constance Leslie, and it was only when the little thing leaped frantically upon her that she turned with a soft, breathless little cry. And saw Gray coming toward her out of the rose and golden sunset.
Neither spoke as he came up and looked into her brown eyes and saw the traces of tears there still. The puppy leaped deliriously about them. And for a long while her slim hands lay limply in[191] his. He looked at the ocean; she at the darkening forest.