"Macartney," she was screaming, "Macartney!" She ran round and round
like a hen in a road, before me, Dudley, all of us; then flung herself
on her brother as if she had only just realized him. "You're
alive--you're not dead! Can't you see he never stole any emeralds nor
loved that girl, any more than he killed you? You made up lies about
him, all of you! And you stand here doing nothing for him. He----Oh,
Mack, speak to me! _Mack!_"

She sprang to Macartney; dropped on her knees by the dead, handsome
length of him; tore open his coat and shirt. But she knelt there, rigid,
with her hand on his quiet heart.

Macartney had never stolen Van Ruyne's emeralds: she had just said it.
There, around Macartney's bared throat, lying on the white skin of his
chest, green lights in the dull fire-glow of the cave, were Van Ruyne's
emeralds, that Paulette Brown--whose real name was Tatiana Paulina
Valenka--had never seen or touched since she put them back into Van
Ruyne's velvet case!

I will say Marcia Wilbraham knew when she was beaten. She cowered back
to Dudley and began to cry; but it was with her arms round his neck. And
the fat little man held her to his queer, kind heart. I turned my back
sharply on the pair of them, and----My eyes met Paulette's!

There would be all sorts of fuss and unpleasantness to go through with
the sheriff from Caraquet, over what was left of Macartney; there was
old Thompson's death to be accounted for; Van Ruyne's emeralds to be
returned to him, so that Tatiana Paulina Valenka, and not Paulette
Brown, could marry that lucky, Indian-dark fool who was Nicky Stretton.
There was Dudley's mine, too, all safe again, and such an incredible
mine that even I would be passably rich out of it,--but I barely, just
barely, thought of all those things. My dream girl's blue eyes were like
stars in mine, under the burnt gold of her silk-soft hair. The clear
carnation rose in her cheeks as I looked at her, where she stood close
to me, all mine, as I had always dreamed she would be,--till I met her
and was sick with doubt of it. She was mine! As far as I was concerned,
this story had ended at Skunk's Misery,--where it had begun, if I had
only guessed it. I gave an honest start as Collins jogged my elbow.

"We can't stay here, with _that_," he whispered, nodding at Macartney.
"What do you think about getting out of this? We could leave--him--here,
with Baker and the boy for a guard, till we can get the Caraquet peop