Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/277

 "It seemed I had to help you; I wanted to go over and grab those papers and make the answers out right—or tell you they didn't matter."

"They didn't, Barney—as it turned out."

"Then the next morning you spoke to me! It was you—you whose name I had."

"That was so strange, Barney!"

"Only wonderful, Ethel! All that morning, while I was talking to you as I had never spoken to any girl before, I kept dreaming, hoping one thing."

"What was it?"

"That what I was to learn at the Rock would make it possible for me to be your friend. I was excited that morning, you remember, when you told me there was such a place as St. Florentin and Resurrection Rock. It seemed to me that at last I was getting close to the thing I'd wondered and dreamed about all my life—who my people were and why I had that ring! I'd dreamed great and marvellous things about myself sometimes, Ethel."

"I know, I know!"

"But that morning, they all left me for something more wonderful yet. If I could have found myself a prince or some sort of heir to half the riches of the world—you know how one imagines, Ethel?"

"Oh, yes!"

"I'd have given that up just to find enough that was good and decent and honest about myself to make it right for me to follow you—and love you."

"That was in your mind that morning, Barney?"

"When you spoke to me when I was staring at the fire in the cabin."

"I see!"

"Then that night when I was alone there—and