Carr impatiently.

"When I first came to this country, there was a woman I loved
passionately. She treated me as women of her kind only treat men like
me; she ruined me, and left me. That was four years ago. I love your
daughter, Mr. Carr, but she has never heard it from my lips. I would not
woo her until I had told you all. I have tried to do it ere this, and
failed. Perhaps I should not now, but--"

"But what?" said Carr furiously; "speak out!"

"But this. Look!" said Fairfax, producing from his pocket the packet of
letters Jessie had found; "perhaps you know the handwriting?"

"What do you mean?" gasped Carr.

"That woman--my mistress--is the woman who advanced you money, and who
claims this house."

The interview, and whatever came of it, remained a secret with the two
men. When Mr. Carr accepted the hospitality of the old cabin again, it
was understood that he had sacrificed the new house and its furniture
to some of the more pressing debts of the mine, and the act went far to
restore his waning popularity. But a more genuine feeling of relief was
experienced by Devil's Ford when it was rumored that Fairfax Munroe had
asked for the hand of Jessie Carr, and that some promise contingent upon
the equitable adjustment of the affairs of the mine had been given
by Mr. Carr. To the superstitious mind of Devil's Ford and its few
remaining locators, this new partnership seemed to promise that unity
of interest and stability of fortune that Devil's Ford had lacked. But
nothing could be done until the rainy season had fairly set in; until
the long-looked-for element that was to magically separate the gold from
the dross in those dull mounds of dust and gravel had come of its own
free will, and in its own appointed channels, independent of the feeble
auxiliaries that had hopelessly riven the rocks on the hillside, or hung
incomplete and unfinished in lofty scaffoldings above the settlement.

The rainy season came early. At first in gathered mists on the higher
peaks that were lifted in the morning sun only to show a fresher field
of dazzling white below; in white clouds that at first seemed to be mere
drifts blown across from those fresh snowfields, and obscuring the
clear blue above; in far-off murmurs in the hollow hills and gulches;
in nearer tinkling melody and baby prattling in the leaves. It came
with bright flashes of sunlight by day, with deep, monotonous shadow at
night; with the onset of heavy winds, the ro