I knew
there were prospectors all over, seeking for what I had found, and how
could I dare stay in my cabin and be traced by a stray horse wandering
to my door? Three coldblooded, selfish murders would now be resting on
my soul. It's no use for a man to shut his eyes and say 'I didn't
know.' It's his business to know. When you speak of the 'Curse of
Cain,' think what I might be bearing now, and remember, if a man
repents of his act, there's mercy for him. So I was taught, and so I
believe.

"When I looked in your face, lying there in my bunk, then I knew that
mercy had been shown me, and for this, here is the thing I mean to do.
It is to show my gold and the mine from which it came to you--"

"No, no! I can't bear it. I must not know." Harry King threw up his
hands as if in fright and rose, trembling in every limb.

"Man, what ails you?"

"Don't. Don't put temptation in my way that I may not be strong enough
to resist."

"I say, what ails you? It's a good thing, rightly used. It may help
you to a way out of your trouble. If I never return--I will, mind
you,--but we never know--if not, my life will surely not have been
spent for naught. You, now, are all I have on earth besides the gold.
It was to have been my son's, and it is yours. It might as well have
been left in the heart of the mountain, else."

"Better. The longer I think on it, the more I see that there is no
hope for me, no true repentance,--" Again that expression on Harry
King's face filled Larry's heart with deep pity. An inward terror
seemed to convulse his features and throw a pallor as of age and years
of sorrow into his visage. Then he continued, after a moment of
self-mastery: "No true repentance for me but to go back and take the
punishment. For this winter I will live here in peace, and do for
Madam Manovska and her daughter what I can, and anything I can do for
you,--then I must return and give myself up. The gold only holds out
a worldly hope to me, and makes what I must do seem harder. I am
afraid of it."

"I'll make you a promise that if I return I'll not let you have it,
but that it shall be turned to some good work. If I do not return, it
will rest on your conscience that before you make your confession, you
shall see it well placed for a charity. You'll have to find the
charity, I can't say what it should be offhand now, but come with me.
I must tell some man living my secret, and you're the only one.
Besides--I trust you. Surely I do