they offer to turn in all their property if
they are permitted to leave the country. That's as bad as a prison
sentence for two men as old as they are. Will you let them do it, and
call the account square, Weyburn?"

"No, by God!" If I set down the very words that I uttered, it is only in
the interest of truth. At that moment I was like the soldiers who have
seen their dead; I had seen the look in Polly's eyes, put there by that
horrible week of waiting and suspense.

The room, as I have said, was the sitting-room of our suite--Polly's and
mine--and I had neither seen nor heard the door of communication with the
bed-room open. When I glanced up she was standing in the doorway, and I
knew that she had heard. In the turning of a leaf she had flown across
the room to drop on her knees beside me and bury her face in my lap.

"Oh, Jimmie--Jimmie, dear!" she sobbed; "you _must_ forgive--forgive and
forget! For my sake--for your own sake--you must!"

That settled it. Benedict flung his freshly lighted cigar into the grate
and turned away, and Barrett got up and crossed to the window. I stood
up and lifted my dear girl to her feet, and with her tear-stained face
between my palms I turned my back upon the past and told her what we were
going to do.

"It shall be as you say, Polly; we'll go back to the tall hills and
forget it--and make other people forget it. And we'll let Mr. Benedict,
here, do just what he pleases, no more and no less, with a pair of old
plotters who haven't so very many years to wait before they will have to
turn in their score to the Great Evener."

At this Barrett jerked out his watch and broke in brusquely; and as at
other times, the brusquerie was only a mask for the things that a man
doesn't wear on his sleeve.

"Cut it short, you two turtle-doves; you've got about forty-five minutes
before the Westbound Limited is due, and you'd better be packing your
grips. Come on downstairs, Benedict, and I'll buy you a drink to go with
that red necktie of yours. Let's go."

XXV

The Mountain's Top

There is little to add; nothing, perhaps, if the literary unities only
were to be considered. The trials and tribulations have all been lived
through; the man and the woman have found each other; the villains have
been given--if not altogether a full measure of their just dues, at
least a sufficient approach to it; and virtue--but no, here the figure
breaks down; virtue hasn't been rewarded