But if I did what I truly ought, Rose Mary
Alloway, I _would_ shake the life out of you for not writing me about
it all. I may do it yet."
"Please don't!" answered Rose Mary with a little smile that still held
its hint of the suffering she had gone through. "I thought you were
out of work yourself and couldn't help us, and I didn't want to
trouble you. It would have hurt you so to know if you couldn't help
me, and I didn't--"
"God, that's it! Fool that I was to go away and risk leaving you
without an understanding!" exclaimed Everett in a bitterly reproachful
tone of voice. "But I was afraid to let you know what I had discovered
until I could get the money to settle that mortgage. I was afraid that
you or Mr. Alloway would unconsciously let him get a hint of the find,
and I knew he could and would foreclose any minute. He was suspicious
of me and my prospecting, anyway, and as he was an old, and as you
both thought, tested friend, what way did I have of proving him the
slob I knew him to be? I thought it best to go and get the company
formed, the option money paid to cover the mortgage and all of it out
of his hands before he could have any chance to get into the game at
all. And that was really the best way to manage it--only I hadn't
counted on his swooping down on--you. Again, God, what I risked!"
"Yes," answered Rose Mary in a voice that barely controlled the cold
horror of the thought that rose between them, "it almost happened.
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