“Come in, George,” went on the colonel, “and make yourself comfortable in the kitchen.  Close the door.  Sit down, Donnegan.  When your letter came I saw that I was needed here.  Lou, have you looked into our friend’s cabin?  No?  Nothing like a woman’s touch to give a man the feeling of homeliness, Lou.  Step over to Donnegan’s cabin and put it to rights.  Yes, I know that George takes care of it, but George is one thing, and your care will be another.  Besides, I must be alone with him for a moment.  Man talk confuses a girl, Lou.  You shouldn’t listen to it.”

She withdrew with that faint, dreamy smile with which she so often heard the instructions of her father; as though she were only listening with half of her mind.  When she was gone, though the door to the kitchen stood wide open, and big George was in it, the colonel lowered his bass voice so successfully that it was as safe as being alone with Donnegan.

“And now for facts,” he began.

“But,” said Donnegan, “how—­that chair—­how in the world have you come here?”

The colonel shook his head.

“My dear boy, you grieve and disappoint me.  The manner in which a thing is done is not important.  Mysteries are usually simply explained.  As for my small mystery—­a neighbor on the way to The Corner with a wagon stopped in, and I asked him to take me along.  So here I am.  But now for your work here, lad?”

“Bad,” said Donnegan.

“I gathered you had been unfortunate.  And now you have been fighting?”

“You have heard?”

“I see it in your eye, Donnegan.  When a man has been looking fear in the face for a time, an image of it remains in his eyes.  They are wider, glazed with the other thing.”

“It was forced on me,” said Donnegan.  “I have shot Landis.”

He was amazed to see the colonel was vitally affected.  His lips remained parted over his next word, and one eyelid twitched violently.  But the spasm passed over quickly.  When he raised his perfect hands and pressed them together just under his chin.  He smiled in a most winning manner that made the blood of Donnegan run cold.

“Donnegan,” he said softly, “I see that I have misjudged you.  I underestimated you.  I thought, indeed, that your rare qualities were qualified by painful weaknesses.  But now I see that you are a man, and from this moment we shall act together with open minds.  So you have done it?  Tush, then I need not have taken my trip.  The work is done; the mines come to me as the heir of Jack.  And yet, poor boy, I pity him!  He misjudged me; he should not have ventured to this deal with Lord Nick and his compatriots!”

“Wait,” exclaimed Donnegan.  “You’re wrong; Landis is not dead.”

Once more the colonel was checked, but this time the alteration in his face was no more than a comma’s pause in a long balanced sentence.  It was impossible to obtain more than one show of emotion from him in a single conversation.