King understood, at least in part, what must lie under Gloria's look of distress. Surely circumstance had placed her in an equivocal position to-night. Summerling was the type to blab; he was in no charitable frame of mind; he had found her alone here with men, had come to marry her to one man, and now had seen her in the arms of another. There was but one answer, even to Mark King.
"Some time you are going to marry me, Gloria," he said gravely. "Why not now?"
"It sounds like--like an advertisement, Mark," she laughed somewhat wildly.
"Poor little kid," he muttered, seeing how she trembled. "But, Gloria, why not? Some time you are going to give yourself to me, aren't you, dear? While this man is still here, won't you let him marry us? It will give me the right to shut that fool Gratton's mouth for him and----Oh, Gloria, my dear, my dear----"
She stood staring at him with wide eyes. He pleaded with her.
"Will you, Gloria?"
And then from lips which did not smile he heard the very faint but no longer evasive "Yes."
"Now, Gloria?"
"Yes, Mark. If you are sure that you want me." She spoke humbly; at the instant she was humble. "But," she added hastily, "still you haven't read poor papa's letter. He was very anxious. Let me go a minute, Mark. I am going upstairs. I--I want to phone to mamma first. And while I am gone you can read papa's letter, and--and----" Her face was hot with blushes.
"And arrange with the judge," he said, his own voice uncertain. "Yes, Gloria."
She ran by him then. He heard her going upstairs, he heard a door closing after her. Then like a man who treads on air he went to the window and threw it up and called: "Jim! Tell the judge not to go. I have business with him. I want him and you here in ten minutes."
And then when Jim's voice had answered him he thought to take up the parcel on the table--largely because Gloria had asked him! A hurried letter from Ben and the parcel from Honeycutt's. Something here for which he had been seeking, working, for years, remembered now only because Gloria had made the request that they be not forgotten.
* * * * *
To withdraw his racing thoughts from Gloria and her golden promise, to bend them to a letter--this was in the beginning an effort. But Ben's words caught him when he had read the first line. He had opened the packet, ripping off the old encasement of cloth. There was a book, a Bible that looked to be centuries old, battered, the covers gone; Gaynor's letter was slipped into it: "DEAR MARK: "Honeycutt's dead. I've got his secret. But Brodie came near doing me in. Honeycutt, dying, sent for me. I got there just in time. He gave me the Bible; it was the "parson's" and then Gus Ingle's. As I was going out of the cabin Brodie and two of his gang swooped down on me. In the dark I pitched the Bible clear and they did not see; it was just that near! They came close to killing me; when I came to I found they'd been through my pockets. I don't know how much Brodie knows. I do know he is working with Gratton, the dirty crook. I think you can beat them to it, hands down. And, for God's sake, Mark, and for my sake if not for your own, don't let the grass grow! I am on the edge of absolute bankruptcy; laid up this way I don't see a chance unless you find what we've been after so long and find it quick. Will you start without any delay? As soon as you get this phone to Charlie Marsh at Coloma. Leave word for me. And let that word be that nothing on earth will stop you! Then I won't go crazy here with worry. And watch out for Gratton as well as Brodie.