Page:Francis Crawford - Mr Isaacs.djvu/273

 if his life had been passed in tending goats and robbing eagles' nests. I, too, moved on to meet him, and in a moment we clasped hands in unfeigned delight at being again together. What was Ghyrkins or his party to me? Here was the man I sought; the one man on earth who seemed worth having for a friend. And yet it was but three weeks since we first met, and I am not enthusiastic by temperament.

"What news, friend Griggs?"

"She greets you and sends you this," I said, taking from my bosom the parcel she had thrust into my hand as I left in the dark. His face fell suddenly. It was the silver box he had given her; was it possible she had taken so much trouble to return it? He turned it over mournfully.

"You had better open it. There is probably something in it."

I never saw a. more complete change in a man's face during a single second than came over Isaacs in that moment. He had not thought of opening it, in his first disappointment at finding it returned. He turned back the lid. Bound with a bit of narrow ribbon and pressed down carefully, he found a heavy lock of gold-white hair, so fair that it made everything around it seem dark—the grass, our clothes, and even the white streamer that hung down from Isaacs' turban. It seemed to shed a bright light, even in the broad noonday, as it lay there in the curiously wrought box—just as the body of some martyred saint found jealously