Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/194



HE selling of the house and the subsequent flight of the Reeds had been, as Gault had guessed, Viola's idea. When, the morning after those two soul-destroying interviews, she had come down, white and apathetic, and had told her father that she wanted to leave the city, the old man, in a desperate desire to reinstate himself in her regard, had been willing to accede to anything.

Pressed by Viola, he had hurried through the sale, had taken the small sum Robson had offered without demur, and, driven by her feverish anxiety, had paid off all their household debts and handed to her the remaining money. This, with himself, he had placed entirely in her hands. As the girl locked it into the small tin box in which she kept such valuables as they possessed, she had suddenly looked at it, and then at him, and finally said:

"But the mortgage? Was n't there interest or something to pay on that?"

"Mortgage!" said the colonel, in innocent surprise. "What mortgage?"