Part 33 (1/2)

”Yes, unless Grace Conroy should lay claim to that t.i.tle and privilege.

The old man seems to have been pretty much divided in his property and affections.”

The shaft did not apparently reach Arthur, for whom it was probably intended. He only said, ”Have you legal evidence that she _is_ the widow? If it were a fact, and a case of ill-treatment or hards.h.i.+p, why it might abate the claim of my client, who is a rich woman, and whose sympathies are of course in favour of the real brother and real sister.

By the way, there is another sister, isn't there?”

”Yes, a mere child.”

”That's all. Thank you. I sha'n't trespa.s.s further upon your time.

Good-day.”

He had taken up his hat and was moving toward the door. Mr. Dumphy, who felt that whatever might have been Poinsett's motives in this interview, he, Dumphy, had certainly gained nothing, determined to retrieve himself, if possible, by a stroke of audacity.

”One moment,” he said, as Poinsett was carefully settling his hat over his curls. ”You know whether this girl is living or not. What has become of her?”

”But I don't,” returned Poinsett calmly, ”or I shouldn't come to _you_.”

There was something about Poinsett's manner that prevented Dumphy from putting him in the category of ”all men,” that both in his haste and his deliberation Mr. Dumphy was apt to say ”were liars.”

”When and where did you see her last?” he asked less curtly.

”I left her at a hunter's cabin near the North Fork while I went back for help. I was too late. A relief party from the valley had already discovered the other dead. When I returned for Grace she was gone--possibly with the relief party. I always supposed it was the expedition that succoured you.”

There was a pause, in which these two scamps looked at each other. It will be remembered that both had deceived the relief party in reference to their connexions with the unfortunate dead. Neither believed, however, that the other was aware of the fact. But the inferior scamp was afraid to ask another question that might disclose his own falsehood; and the question which might have been an embarra.s.sing one to Arthur, and have changed his att.i.tude toward Dumphy, remained unasked.

Not knowing the reason of Dumphy's hesitation, Arthur was satisfied of his ignorance, and was still left the master. He nodded carelessly to Dumphy and withdrew.

As he left the room he brushed against a short, thick-set man, who was entering at the same moment. Some instinct of mutual repulsion caused the two men to look at each other. Poinsett beheld a sallow face, that, in spite of its belonging to a square figure, seemed to have a consumptive look; a face whose jaw was narrow and whose lips were always half-parted over white, large, and protruding teeth; a mouth that apparently was always breathless--a mouth that Mr. Poinsett remembered as the distinguis.h.i.+ng and unpleasant feature of some one vaguely known to him professionally. As the mouth gasped and parted further in recognition, Poinsett nodded carelessly in return, and attributing his repulsion to that extraordinary feature thought no more about it.

Not so the new-comer. He glanced suspiciously after Arthur and then at Mr. Dumphy. The latter, who had recovered his presence of mind and his old audacity, turned them instantly upon him.

”Well! What have you got to propose?” he said, with his usual curt formula.

”It is you have something to say; you sent for _me_,” said his visitor.

”Yes. You left me to find out that there was another grant to that mine.

What does all this mean, Ramirez?”

Victor raised his eyes and yellow fringes to the ceiling, and said, with a shrug--

”_Quien sabe?_ there are grants and grants!”

”So it seems. But I suppose you know that we have a t.i.tle now better than any grant--a mineral discovery.”

Victor bowed and answered with his teeth, ”_We_, eh?”

”Yes, I am getting up a company for her husband.”

”Her husband--good!”

Dumphy looked at his accomplice keenly. There was something in Victor's manner that was vaguely suspicious. Dumphy, who was one of those men to whose courage the habit of success in all things was essential, had been a little shaken by his signal defeat in his interview with Poinsett, and now became irritable.