Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/190

178 he had half revealed his groundless doubts, had tried to find confirmation of them in the halting admissions of her puzzled ignorance. And with her comprehension of the light in which he had been regarding her came that coup de grâce of all doubts in his favor—the giving of the money.

With a clearness of vision that was like clairvoyance, he seemed to be able to read down into the depths of her consciousness, to see into the hidden places of the nature he had once thought so jealously secretive. In the gnawing bitterness of his remorse he realized that she had believed herself tricked, that the hand she had thought stretched to her in kindly fellowship in reality concealed a trap. Where she had looked for protection, support, and love, she had found what now presented itself to her as a sinister and cruel craftiness. Her best friend had turned out to be her most unrelenting enemy.

In the loneliness of that long summer he came face to face with despair. He had lost her by his own mad folly. Remorse for the wrong he had done her alternated in his thoughts with an unquenchable longing to see her again. His heart craved for her, even if only for a single moment's glimpse. A younger man would have shaken off the gloom of his first great disappointment, have told himself