work
convulsively; he suddenly brought his paralyzed hand down, partly
opened, upon the table. "I WILL remember where."

"Go slow, old man; go slow."

"You asked me once about my visions. Well, that is one of them. I
remember a man somewhere showing me that letter. I have taken it from
his hands and opened it, and knew it was mine by the specimens of gold
that were in it. But where--or when--or what became of it, I cannot
tell. It will come to me--it MUST come to me soon."

He turned his eyes upon Mulrady, who was regarding him with an
expression of grave curiosity, and said bitterly, "You think me crazy.
I know it. It needed only this."

"Where is this mine," asked Mulrady, without heeding him.

The old man's eyes swiftly sought the ground.

"It is a secret, then?"

"No."

"You have spoken of it to any one?"

"No."

"Not to the man who possesses it?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I wouldn't take it from him."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because that man is yourself!"

In the instant of complete silence that followed they could hear that
the monotonous patter of rain on the roof had ceased.

"Then all this was in MY shaft, and the vein I thought I struck there
was YOUR lead, found three years ago in YOUR tunnel. Is that your
idea?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't sabe why you don't want to claim it."

"I have told you why I don't want it for my children. I go further,
now, and I tell you, Alvin Mulrady, that I was willing that your
children should squander it, as they were doing. It has only been a
curse to me; it could only be a curse to them; but I thought you were
happy in seeing it feed selfishness and vanity. You think me bitter and
hard. Well, I should have left you in your fool's paradise, but that I
saw to-night, when you came here, that your eyes had been opened like
mine. You, the possessor of my wealth, my treasure, could not buy your
children's loving care and company with your millions, any more than I
could keep mine in my poverty. You were to-night lonely and forsaken,
as I was. We were equal, for the first time in our lives. If that
cursed gold had dropped down the shaft between us into the hell from
which it sprang, we might have clasped hands like brothers across the
chasm."

Mulrady, who in a friendly show of being at his ease had not yet
resumed his coat, rose in his shirt-sleeves, and, standing before the
hearth, straightened his square figure by drawing down his waistcoat