Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/169

Rh worked at anything. So that was why he went to you. We were in despair when we knew you first—we were starving."

"Dear child, why go over all this? It 's only a pain to us both."

He tried to take her hands, but she drew them back and made a gesture as though pushing him away.

"I did n't know where it came from. I believed him. Oh, Mr. Gault, if he told me what was not true, you can't blame him. You 've never known what it feels like to have some one you love wanting the necessaries of life. You could beg for them—steal for them! And when I told you those things about the mining stock, what did you think I meant? What did you believe?"

She spoke less to him than to her own dazed and miserable consciousness, which moment by moment saw new matter for humiliation in the deception of which she had been the victim.

But Gault, with the guilt of his own hateful suspicions weighing upon him, feared that she had realized his previous state of mistrust, and said fervently:

"If I did believe what was a wrong to you, forgive me, Viola. I was a blind fool."

She raised her head like a stag and transfixed him with a sudden glance. Unprepared for the