"Call it a medicine. It's lying out in the open within a little march of the common ways of men and women. I tumbled on the find by a stroke of luck and a little knowledge and a word inside me that whispered, 'Look, go and look.' You've read Kipling's 'Explorer'—I read it you. 'Something lost behind the ranges—something hidden, go you there.' It was like that with me—a pringly feeling—a kind of second sense—expectancy—belief—certainty. Nature has a trick of showing the combination of her treasure safe to one man before the rest—and I was the man."
The little chestnut head shook helplessly from side to side.
"What is it you've found?" said Isabel.
He looked at her searchingly and hesitated.
"If I tell you you'll keep it secret?"
"Yes."
"Honest?"
"Honest."
He dropped his voice.
"It's radium," he said.