Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/177

Rh Stranger; for every whisper goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it pass. Now, that’s the house you’re after, that one standing back from the street. You’ll find old Jacob Shafter that runs it as honest a man as lives in this township.”

“I thank you,” said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new acquaintance he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to the dwelling house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock.

It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. She was of the German type, blond and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of a pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger with surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of color over her pale face. Framed in the bright light of the open doorway, it seemed to McMurdo that he had never seen a more beautiful picture; the more attractive for its contrast with the sordid and gloomy surroundings. A lovely violet growing upon one of those black slap-heaps of the mines would not [175]