“No, no, not a word just now,” he hastened to proceed.  “Let me speak first.  I appreciate, though I can’t imitate, the delicacy of your nature; and I can well understand you would rather die than speak of it, and yet might feel disappointed.  I did think I could have done better myself.  But when I found how tight money was in this city, and a man like Douglas B. Longhurst—­a forty-niner, the man that stood at bay in a corn patch for five hours against the San Diablo squatters—­weakening on the operation, I tell you, Loudon, I began to despair; and—­I may have made mistakes, no doubt there are thousands who could have done better—­but I give you a loyal hand on it, I did my best.”

“My poor Jim,” said I, “as if I ever doubted you! as if I didn’t know you had done wonders!  All day I’ve been admiring your energy and resource.  And as for that affair——­”

“No, Loudon, no more, not a word more!  I don’t want to hear,” cried Jim.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t want to tell you,” said I; “for it’s a thing I’m ashamed of.”

“Ashamed, Loudon?  O, don’t say that; don’t use such an expression even in jest!” protested Pinkerton.

“Do you never do anything you’re ashamed of?” I inquired.

“No,” says he, rolling his eyes.  “Why?  I’m sometimes sorry afterwards, when it pans out different from what I figured.  But I can’t see what I would want to be ashamed for.”

I sat a while considering with admiration the simplicity of my friend’s character.  Then I sighed.  “Do you know, Jim, what I’m sorriest for?” said I.  “At this rate, I can’t be best man at your marriage.”

“My marriage!” he repeated, echoing the sigh.  “No marriage for me now.  I’m going right down to-night to break it to her.  I think that’s what’s shaken me all day.  I feel as if I had had no right (after I was engaged) to operate so widely.”

“Well, you know, Jim, it was my doing, and you must lay the blame on me,” said I.

“Not a cent of it!” he cried.  “I was as eager as yourself, only not so bright at the beginning.  No; I’ve myself to thank for it; but it’s a wrench.”

While Jim departed on his dolorous mission, I returned alone to the office, lit the gas, and sat down to reflect on the events of that momentous day:  on the strange features of the tale that had been so far unfolded, the disappearances, the terrors, the great sums of money; and on the dangerous and ungrateful task that awaited me in the immediate future.

It is difficult, in the retrospect of such affairs, to avoid attributing to ourselves in the past a measure of the knowledge we possess to-day.  But I may say, and yet be well within the mark, that I was consumed that night with a fever of suspicion and curiosity; exhausted my fancy in solutions, which I still dismissed as incommensurable with the facts; and in the mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught