"Since you know so much of my affairs, how do you know that this claim
will ever be pressed for payment? How do you know it is not the advance
of a--a--friend?"
"Because I have seen the woman who advanced it," said Fairfax
hopelessly. "She was here to look at the property before your daughters
came."
"Well?" said Carr nervously.
"Well! You force me to tell you something I should like to forget. You
force me to anticipate a disclosure I expected to make to you only when
I came to ask permission to woo your daughter Jessie; and when I tell
you what it is, you will understand that I have no right to criticise
your conduct. I am only explaining my own."
"Go on," said Carr impatiently.
"When I first came to this country, there was a woman I loved
passionately. She treated me as women of her kind only treat men like
me; she ruined me, and left me. That was four years ago. I love your
daughter, Mr. Carr, but she has never heard it from my lips. I would not
woo her until I had told you all. I have tried to do it ere this, and
failed. Perhaps I should not now, but--"
"But what?" said Carr furiously; "speak out!"
"But this. Look!" said Fairfax, producing from his pocket the packet of
letters Jessie had found; "perhaps you know the handwriting?"
"What do you mean?" gasped Carr.
"That woman--my mistress--is the woman who advanced you money, and who
claims this house."
The interview, and whatever came of it, remained a secret with the two
men. When Mr. Carr accepted the hospitality of the old cabin again, it
was understood that he had sacrificed the new house and its furniture
to some of the more pressing debts of the mine, and the act went far to
restore his waning popularity. But a more genuine feeling of relief was
experienced by Devil's Ford when it was rumored that Fairfax Munroe had
asked for the hand of Jessie Carr, and that some promise contingent upon
the equitable adjustment of the affairs of the mine had been given
by Mr. Carr. To the superstitious mind of Devil's Ford and its few
remaining locators, this new partnership seemed to promise that unity
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