The Three Partners | Page 9

that it has come at
last,--all that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would have made us
happy here; all that would have saved you to me has come at last, and
all too late!"
"Too late!" echoed the voice with his.
"You remember," he went on, "the last day we were together. You
remember your friends and family would have you give me up--a
penniless man. You remember when they reproached you with my
poverty, and told you that it was only your wealth that I was seeking,
that I then determined to go away and never to return to claim you until
that reproach could be removed. You remember, dearest, how you
clung to me and bade me stay with you, even fly with you, but not to
leave you alone with them. You wore the same dress that day, darling;
your eyes had the same wondering childlike fear and trouble in them;
your jewels glittered on you as you trembled, and I refused. In my pride,
or rather in my weakness and cowardice, I refused. I came away and
broke my heart among these rocks and ledges, yet grew strong; and you,

my love, YOU, sheltered and guarded by those you loved, YOU"-- He
stopped and buried his face in his hands. The night wind breathed down
the chimney, and from the stirred ashes on the hearth came the soft
whisper, "I died."
"And then," he went on, "I cared for nothing. Sometimes my heart
awoke for this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful love for a
girl that even in her humble station was far beyond his hopes, and I
pitied myself in him. Home, fortune, friends, I no longer cared for--all
were forgotten. And now they are returning to me--only that I may see
the hollowness and vanity of them, and taste the bitterness for which I
have sacrificed you. And here, on this last night of my exile, I am
confronted with only the jealousy, the doubt, the meanness and
selfishness that is to come. Too late! Too late!"
The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared to
clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it the wind moaning in
the chimney that seemed to whisper to him: "Too late, beloved, for ME,
but not for you. I died, but Love still lives. Be happy, Philip. And in
your happiness I too may live again"?
He started. In the flickering firelight the chair was empty. The wind
that had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a sound
like the passage of a rustling skirt. There was a chill in the air and a
smell like that of opened earth. A nervous shiver passed over him. Then
he sat upright. There was no mistake; it was no superstitious fancy, but
a faint, damp current of air was actually flowing across his feet towards
the fireplace. He was about to rise when he stopped suddenly and
became motionless.
He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which had affected
him even in the preoccupation of his vision. It was a gentle brushing of
some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the
sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland
sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching
of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long,
deep respirations of his sleeping companions were distinct from that
monotonous sound. He could not even tell if it were IN the cabin or

without. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket
that covered the treasure was actually moving!
He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, and menacing. For
this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of riches had
disappeared with that midnight trespass upon the sacred treasure. The
movement of the blanket ceased; the soft, swishing sound
recommenced. He drew a glittering bowie-knife from his boot- leg, and
in three noiseless strides was beside the pile. There he saw what he
fully expected to see,--a narrow, horizontal gap between the log walls
of the cabin and the adobe floor, slowly widening and deepening by the
burrowing of unseen hands from without. The cold outer air which he
had felt before was now plainly flowing into the heated cabin through
the opening. The swishing sound recommenced, and stopped. Then the
four fingers of a hand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced
between the bottom log and the denuded floor. Upon that intruding
hand the bowie-knife of Demorest descended like a flash of lightning.
There was no outcry. Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a
pang of admiration for the stoicism of the unseen