doubt her action was the properest she could take.  And I thought if I came on her panting, flying, and offered her my protection, she’d fall down and adore me.  So, to make a long tale short, I stopped a bit in that locality, hunting for her quite private after every one else had given up hunting.  I heard of a daft old man who’d got about, the Lord only knows how, and I set the folks firmly believing that he was old Cameron.  Well, if he was, then the girl was lost and dead; but if he wasn’t—­well, I twigged it she’d got on the railroad, and, by being real pleasant to all the car men, I found out, quite by the way and private, how she might have got on, and where any girl had got off, till by patience and perseverance I got on your track; and I’ve been eight months trying to fathom your deepness and win your affections.  The more fool I!  For to try to win what hasn’t any more existence than the pot at the rainbow’s tail is clear waste of time.  Deep you are; but you haven’t got any of the commodity of affection in your breast.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before, like an honest man?” she asked; “and I’d have told you you didn’t know as much as you thought you did.”  Her voice was a little thick; but it was expressionless.

“I’m not green.  If you’d known you were possessed of money, d’you suppose you’d have stayed here to marry me?  Oh no, I meant to get that little ceremony over first, and spring the mine on you for a wedding present after.  The reason I’ve told you now is that I wouldn’t marry you now, not if you’d ten millions of dollars in cash in your pocket.”

“Why not?  If I’m the person you take me for, I’m as rich and clever now.”  She still sat with her back to him; her voice so impassive that even interrogation was hardly expressed in words that had the form of a question.

“Yes, and you’d be richer and cleverer now with me, by a long chalk, than without me!  If you’d me to say who you are, and that I’d known it all along, and how you’d got here, and to bring up the railroad fellows (I’ve got all their names) who noticed you to bear witness, your claim would look better in the eyes of the law.  ’Twould look a deal better in the eyes of the world, too, to come as Mrs. Cyril P. Harkness, saying you had been Miss Cameron, than to come on the stage as Miss White, laying claim to another name; and it would be a long sight more comfortable to have me to support and cherish you at such a time than not to have a friend in the world except the folks whose eyes you’ve pulled the wool over, and who’ll be mighty shocked.  Oh, yes; by Jemima! you’d be richer and cleverer now with me than without me.  But I’ll tell you what I’ve come here to say”—­his manner took a tone more serious; his mocking smile passed away; he seemed to pause to arrest his own lightness, and put on an unwonted dignity.  “I tell you,” he repeated slowly, “what I’ve come here to say—­I do despise a young lady without