"Twenty pounds!" exclaimed Kells, with a strange rapture in his

voice.

"Let me heft it?" asked Pearce, thrillingly.

Joan saw and heard so much, then through a kind of dimness, that she

could not wipe away, her eyes beheld Jim. What was the awful thing

that she interpreted from his face, his mien? Was this a part he was

playing to deceive Kells? The slow-gathering might of her horror

came with the meaning of that gold-belt. Jim had brought back the

gold-belt of the miner Creede. He had, in his passion to remain near

her, to save her in the end, kept his word to Kells and done the

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ghastly deed.

Joan reeled and sank back upon the bed, blindly, with darkening

sight and mind.




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