"When the time comes that releases me from my pledge of absolute secrecy, dear," he told her earnestly, "I mean to tell you all about my business--and I think you'll approve, then. Now I don't talk because I have no right to."

Again there was silence, after which Glory said in a voice of still resolution which he had never heard from her before:

"I'm ignorant and uncultivated, Jack, but to me marriage is a full partnership--or it isn't anything. When Mr. Harrison came, I saw for the first time just how I looked to men like him. I was just 'pore white trash.'"

"Did he----" Spurrier broke off and his face went abruptly white with pa.s.sion. Had Harrison been there at that moment he would have stood in danger at the hands of his employee, but Glory shook her head and hastened to quiet him.

"He wasn't impolite, Jack. It wasn't that--only I read in his eyes what he tried to hide. I only told you that because I wanted you to understand me. People here say that you give me everything but yourself; that I'm not good enough for you except right here where there's nothing better."

"That is a d.a.m.ned lie," he expostulated. "Who says it?"

"Only women-folks and gossipy grannies that you can't fight with, Jack," she answered steadily. "But I've thought about it lots. I've come to think, dear, that maybe you ought to be free--and if you ought," she paused, then the final a.s.sertion broke from her with an agonized voice, "then, I love you enough to set you free."

Spurrier seized her in his arms and his words came choked with vehement feeling.

"I want you, Glory. I want you always and I couldn't live without you.

When I have to go away I endure it only by thinking of coming back to you. If you ever set me free as you call it, it will be only because _you_ don't want _me_. I suppose in that case I'd try to take my medicine--but I think it would about kill me."

"There's no danger of that, dear," she declared.

The man drew away for a moment and fumbled for words. His aptness of speech had deserted him and at last he spoke clumsily:

"It's hard to explain just now, when you've accused me of not taking you into my confidence, but I stand at a point, Glory, where I've got the hardest fight ahead of me I ever made. I stand to be ruined or to make good. I've got to use every minute and every thought in compet.i.tion with quick brains and enormous power. Until its over I must be a machine with one idea ... and I'll fail, dear, unless I can take with me the knowledge that you trust me."

She looked up into his face and the misery in her eyes gave place to confidence.

"Go ahead, Jack," she said. "I believe in you and I'm not even afraid of your failing." After a moment she clasped her arms tightly about him and added vehemently: "But whether you succeed or fail, come back to me, dear, because, except for your sake, it won't make any difference to me."

That same afternoon Spurrier found time to visit the "witch woman." It had dawned upon him since that night in the Senate chamber that, after all, Sim Colby might have been the least dangerous of his enemies, and the thought made him inquisitive.

The old crone made her magic with abundant grotesquerie, but at its end she peered shrewdly into his eyes, and said:

"I reads hyar in the omends thet mebby ye comes too late."

Spurrier smiled grimly. He thought that himself.

"I dis'arns," went on the hag portentously, "thet a blind man impereled ye mightily--a blind man thet plays a fiddle--but thars others beside him thet dwells fur away an' holds a mighty power of wealth."

A blind man! Spurrier's remembrance flashed back to the visit of blind Joe Givins and the papers incautiously left on his table. Yet if he was genuinely blind they could have meant nothing to him--and if he was not genuinely blind it was hard to conceive of human nerves enduring without wincing that test of the gun thrust against the temple.

Spurrier rose and paid his fee. Had he seen her in time, this warning would have averted disaster. Now it was something of a post-mortem.

At the door of Martin Harrison's office several days later Spurrier drew back his shoulders and braced himself. It was impossible to ignore the fact that he stood on the brink of total ruin; that his sole hope lay in persuading his princ.i.p.al that with more time and more money he would yet be able to succeed--and Harrison was as plastic to persuasion as a bra.s.s Buddha.

But he had steeled himself for the interview--and now he turned the k.n.o.b and swung back the mahogany door.

Spurrier was familiar enough with the atmosphere of that office to read the signs correctly. The hushed air of nervousness that hung over it now betokened a chief in a mood which no one sought to stir to further irritation.

Always in the past Spurrier had been deferentially ushered into a private office and treated as the future chief. Now, as though he were already a disinherited heir, he was left in the general waiting room, and he was left there for an hour. That cooling of the heel, he recognized as a warning of the cold reception to come--and an augury of ruin.

At last he was called in, but he went with an unruffled demeanor which hid from the princ.i.p.al's eye how near to breaking his inward confidence was strained.

"I wired you to come at once," began Harrison curtly, and Spurrier smiled as he nodded.

"I came at once, sir, except that I hadn't been home for some time, and it was necessary to make a stop there."

"Home," Martin's brows lifted a trifle. "You mean the mountains."

"Certainly--for the time being, I'm located there."

"We may as well be honest with each other," a.s.serted the magnate. "I consider that under the circ.u.mstances you behaved with serious discourtesy and without candor." For a casual moment his glance dwelt on the portrait of Vivien which stood on his table.

"I disagree with you, sir. I preferred relating the full circ.u.mstances, which were unusual, when there was an opportunity to do so in person.

I was kept there by your interests as well as my own."

"That recital," said the older man dryly, "is your concern. Now that I know the facts I find myself uninterested in the details. You have chosen your way. The question is whether we can travel it together."

"And I presume that the first point of that question demands a full report upon the business operations."

"So far as I can see, they have collapsed."

"They have by no means collapsed."

Suddenly the wrath that had been smoldering in Harrison's eyes burst into tempest. He brought his clenched fist down upon his desk until inkwells and accessories rattled.

This man's moments of equinox were terrifying to those who must bow to his will--and his will held sway over broad horizons. If John Spurrier had not been intrepid he must have collapsed under the withering violence of the pa.s.sion that rained on him.

"Before G.o.d," cried Harrison, pacing his floor like a lion that lashes itself to frenzy, "you undertook to avenge me on Trabue. You have drawn on me with carte-blanche liberties and spent fortunes like a prodigal! You have a.s.sured me that you had, at all times, the situation well in hand. Then, through some d.a.m.ned blunder, you failed.

Let the money loss slide. d.a.m.n the money! I'm the laughingstock of the business world. I'm delivered over to Trabue's enjoyment as a b.o.o.b who failed. I'm an absurdity, and you're responsible!"

"When you've finished, sir," said Spurrier quietly, "I shall endeavor to show you that none of those things have happened--that our failure is temporary and that when you undertook this enterprise you were in no impetuous haste as to the time of its accomplishment."

"The legislature doesn't meet for two years," Harrison barked back at him. "That will be two years of preparation for Trabue. Now he's fully warned, where do we get off?"

"At our original point of destination, sir."

The opportunity hound began his argument. His demeanor of unruffled calm and entire confidence began to exercise its persuasive force.

Harrison cooled somewhat, but Spurrier was fighting, beneath his pose, as a man who has cramps in deep water fights for his life. These few minutes would determine his fate, and he was totally at the mercy of this single arbiter.

"I have now all the options we need on the far side of Hemlock Mountain," Spurrier summarized at last. "All except one tract which belongs to Bud Hawkins, who is a preacher and a friend of mine. He must have more generous terms, but I will be able to do business with him."

"You talk of the options on the far side of the ridge," Harrison broke in belligerently. "That is the minor field."

"I'll be able to repeat that performance on the near side."

"You will not! A repet.i.tion of your performance is the last thing we crave. Any movement now would be only a piling up of warnings. For the present you will give every indication of having abandoned the project."

"That is my idea, sir. I was not speaking of immediate but future activities. Also----" In spite of his desperation of plight the younger man's bearing flashed into a challenging undernote of its old audacity, "when I used the word 'repeat' I referred to the successful portion of my effort. There was no failure on the land end. It was the charter that went wrong--through the deceit of a man we had to trust."