Cass started.  “And his name was——?”

“Part of your surname.  Cass—­Henry Cass.”

“You see why Providence seems to have brought that ring to you,” she went on.  “But you ask me why, knowing this, I am so eager to know if the ring was found by you in the road, or if it were found on his body.  Listen!  It is part of my mortification that the story goes that this man once showed this ring, boasted of it, staked, and lost it at a gambling table to one of his vile comrades.”

“Kanaka Joe,” said Cass, overcome by a vivid recollection of Joe’s merriment at the trial.

“The same.  Don’t you see,” she said, hurriedly, “if the ring had been found on him I could believe that somewhere in his heart he still kept respect for the woman he had wronged.  I am a woman—­a foolish woman, I know—­but you have crushed that hope forever.”

“But why have you sent for me?” asked Cass, touched by her emotion.

“To know it for certain,” she said, almost fiercely.  “Can you not understand that a woman like me must know a thing once and forever?  But you can help me.  I did not send for you only to pour my wrongs in your ears.  You must take me with you to this place—­to the spot where you found the ring—­to the spot where you found the body—­to the spot where—­where he lies.  You must do it secretly, that none shall know me.”

Cass hesitated.  He was thinking of his companions and the collapse of their painted bubble.  How could he keep the secret from them?

“If it is money, you need, let not that stop you.  I have no right to your time without recompense.  Do not misunderstand me.  There has been a thousand dollars awaiting my order at Bookham’s when the ring should be delivered.  It shall be doubled if you help me in this last moment.”

It was possible.  He could convey her safely there, invent some story of a reward delayed for want of proofs, and afterward share that reward with his friends.  He answered promptly, “I will take you there.”

She took his hands in both of hers, raised them to her lips, and smiled.  The shadow of grief and restraint seemed to have fallen from her face, and a half mischievous, half coquettish gleam in her dark eyes touched the susceptible Cass in so subtle a fashion that he regained the street in some confusion.  He wondered what Miss Porter would have thought.  But was he not returning to her, a fortunate man, with one thousand dollars in his pocket!  Why should he remember he was handicapped by a pretty woman and a pathetic episode?  It did not make the proximity less pleasant as he helped her into the coach that evening, nor did the recollection of another ride with another woman obtrude itself upon those consolations which he felt it his duty, from time to time, to offer.  It was arranged that he should leave her at the “Red Chief” Hotel, while he continued on to Blazing Star, returning at noon to bring her with him when