A sharp suspicion was in her heart that somehow or other her father was responsible for this man's degradation and ruin. She looked Lygon in the eyes.

"Did you want to see me?" she asked.

She scarcely knew why she said it; but she was sensible of trouble, maybe of tragedy, somewhere; and she had a vague dread of she knew not what, for, hide it, avoid it, as she had done so often, there was in her heart an unhappy doubt concerning her father.

A great change had come over Lygon. Her presence had altered him. He was again where she had left him in the afternoon.

He heard her say to her father: "This was the man I told you of--at the reedy lake. Did you come to see me?" she repeated.

"I did not know you were here," he answered. "I came"--he was conscious of Henderley's staring eyes fixed upon his helplessly--"I came to ask your father if he would not buy my shack. There is good shooting at the lake; the ducks come plenty, sometimes. I want to get away, to start again somewhere. I've been a failure. I want to get away, right away south. If he would buy it, I could start again. I've had no luck."

He had invented it on the moment, but the girl understood better than Lygon or Henderley could have dreamed. She had seen the change pa.s.s over Lygon.

Henderley had a hand on himself again, and the startled look went out of his eyes.

"What do you want for your shack and the lake?" he asked, with restored confidence. The fellow no doubt was grateful that his daughter had saved his life, he thought.

"Five hundred dollars," answered Lygon, quickly.

Henderley would have handed over all that lay on the table before him, but he thought it better not to do so. "I'll buy it," he said. "You seem to have been hit hard. Here is the money. Bring me the deed to-morrow--to-morrow."

"I'll not take the money till I give you the deed," said Lygon. "It will do to-morrow. It's doing me a good turn. I'll get away and start again somewhere. I've done no good up here. Thank you, sir--thank you."

Before they realized it, the tent-curtain rose and fell, and he was gone into the night.

The trouble was still deep in the girl's eyes as she kissed her father, and he, with an overdone cheerfulness, wished her a good-night.

The man of iron had been changed into a man of straw once at least in his lifetime.

Lygon found Dupont at the Forks.

"_Eh_, _ben_, it is all right--yes?" Dupont asked, eagerly, as Lygon joined him.

"Yes, it is all right," answered Lygon.

With an exulting laugh and an obscene oath, Dupont pushed out the canoe, and they got away into the moonlight. No word was spoken for some distance, but Dupont kept giving grunts of satisfaction.

"You got the ten t'ousan' each--in cash or check, eh? The check or the money--_hein_?"

"I've got nothing," answered Lygon.

Dupont dropped his paddle with a curse.

"You got not'ing! You said eet was all right!" he growled.

"It is all right. I got nothing. I asked for nothing. I have had enough. I have finished."

With a roar of rage Dupont sprang on him, and caught him by the throat as the canoe swayed and dipped. He was blind with fury.

Lygon tried with one hand for his knife, and got it, but the pressure on his throat was growing terrible.

For minutes the struggle continued, for Lygon was fighting with the desperation of one who makes his last awful onset against fate and doom.

Dupont also had his knife at work. At last it drank blood, but as he got it home he suddenly reeled blindly, lost his balance, and lurched into the water with a groan.

Lygon, weapon in hand and bleeding freely, waited for him to rise and make for the canoe again.

Ten, twenty, fifty seconds pa.s.sed. Dupont did not rise. A minute went by, and still there was no stir, no sign. Dupont would never rise again. In his wild rage he had burst a blood-vessel on the brain.

Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did it calmly, whispering to himself the while.

"I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die then," he muttered to himself.

Presently he grasped an oar and paddled feebly.

A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place.

Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but began this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently. First, step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forward, a journey as long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it never end? It seemed a terrible climbing-up the sides of a cliff, and, as he struggled fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but he realized that the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard did not torture, they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the murmur of waters, like the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells. But the bells were only the beatings of his heart--so loud, so swift.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOR MINUTES THE STRUGGLE CONTINUED]

He was on his knees now, crawling on--on--on. At last there came a light, suddenly bursting on him from a tent he was so near. Then he called, and called again, and fell forward on his face. But now he heard a voice above him. It was _her_ voice. He had blindly struggled on to die near her, near where she was, she was so pitiful and good.

He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him.

There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard.

"G.o.d help him--oh, G.o.d help him!" she was saying.

He drew a long, quiet breath. "I will sleep now," he said, clearly.

He would hear the Whisperer no more.

AS DEEP AS THE SEA

"What can I do, Dan? I'm broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last debt to-day. I've nothing but what I stand in. I've got prospects, but I can't discount prospects at the banks." The speaker laughed bitterly.

"I've reaped and I'm sowing, the same as you, Dan."

The other made a nervous motion of protest. "No; not the same as me, Flood--not the same. It's sink or swim with me, and if you can't help me--oh, I'd take my gruel without whining, if it wasn't for Di! It's that that knocks me over. It's the shame to her. Oh, what a cursed a.s.s and fool--and thief, I've been!"

"Thief?--thief?"

Flood Rawley dropped the flaming match with which he was about to light a cheroot, and stood staring, his dark-blue eyes growing wider, his worn, handsome face becoming drawn, as swift conviction mastered him. He felt that the black words which had fallen from his friend's lips--from the lips of Diana Welldon's brother--were the truth. He looked at the plump face, the full, amiable eyes, now misty with fright, at the characterless hand nervously feeling the golden mustache, at the well-fed, inert body; and he knew that, whatever the trouble or the peril, Dan Welldon could not surmount it alone.