the gold to Sacramento in the spring, and deposit it there in a savings
bank for one Lovins Markham Moore. They would let the interest "ride"
with the principal, and they would--though neither openly confessed it
to the other--from time to time add a little from their own earnings.
Bud especially looked forward to that as a compromise with his duty to
his own child. He intended to save every cent he could, and to start
a savings account in the same bank, for his own baby, Robert Edward
Moore--named for Bud. He could not start off with as large a sum as
Lovins would have, and for that Bud was honestly sorry. But Robert
Edward Moore would have Bud's share in the claims, which would do a
little toward evening things up.

Having settled these things to the satisfaction of their desires and
their consciences, they went to bed well pleased with the day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. MARIE'S SIDE OF IT

We all realize keenly, one time or another, the abject poverty of
language. To attempt putting some emotions into words is like trying
to play Ave Maria on a toy piano. There are heights and depths utterly
beyond the limitation of instrument and speech alike.

Marie's agonized experience in Alpine--and afterward--was of that kind.
She went there under the lure of her loneliness, her heart-hunger for
Bud. Drunk or sober, loving her still or turning away in anger, she had
to see him; had to hear him speak; had to tell him a little of what she
felt of penitence and longing, for that is what she believed she had to
do. Once she had started, she could not turn back. Come what might,
she would hunt until she found him. She had to, or go crazy, she told
herself over and over. She could not imagine any circumstance that would
turn her back from that quest.

Yet she did turn back--and with scarce a thought of Bud. She could not
imagine the thing happening that did happen, which is the way life
has of keeping us all on the anxious seat most of the time. She could
not--at least she did not--dream that Lovin Child, at once her comfort
and her strongest argument for a new chance at happiness, would in
ten minutes or so wipe out all thought of Bud and leave only a dumb,
dreadful agony that hounded her day and night.

She had reached Alpine early in the forenoon, and had gone to the one
little hotel, to rest and gather up her courage for the search which she
felt was only beginning. She had been too careful of her money to spend
any for a sl