Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/26

14 squeezed in narrow slits. John Gault pulled the old-fashioned bell and stood listening to its jingling note.

There was a step in the passage within, and the light shone through the two narrow panes of glass that flanked the front door on either side. A key turned and the door was opened. In the aperture Viola Reed stood with a kerosene lamp flickering in her hand. She held a piece of light-colored material in the other hand. As her glance fell on the visitor she made an instinctive movement as if to hide this.

"Oh, is it you?" she said. "Come in. I 'm glad you've come!"

She uttered the sentences quickly, and was evidently embarrassed. Even by the light of the smoky lamp Gault could see that she had flushed.

"I never thought of your coming to-night," she said, as she turned to open the parlor door. "It 's a great surprise. My father will be delighted."

She held the lamp up while the visitor divested himself of his coat and hung it on the chair that did duty as a hat-rack. In the dim hallway, with its walls from which the paper had peeled in long strips, and the stairway beyond, with the twine showing through the ragged carpet, the man of the world in his well