Then, satisfied and shattered, fulfilled and destroyed, he went home away from her, drifting vaguely through the darkness, lapsed into the old fire of burning passion. Far away, far away, there seemed to be a small lament in the darkness. But what did it matter? What did it matter, what did anything matter save this ultimate and triumphant experience of physical passion, that had blazed up anew like a new spell of life. ‘I was becoming quite dead–alive, nothing but a word–bag,’ he said in triumph, scorning his other self. Yet somewhere far off and small, the other hovered.

The men were still dragging the lake when he got back. He stood on the bank and heard Gerald’s voice. The water was still booming in the night, the moon was fair, the hills beyond were elusive. The lake was sinking. There came the raw smell of the banks, in the night air.

Up at Shortlands there were lights in the windows, as if nobody had gone to bed. On the landing–stage was the old doctor, the father of the young man who was lost. He stood quite silent, waiting. Birkin also stood and watched, Gerald came up in a boat.

‘You still here, Rupert?’ he said. ‘We can’t get them. The bottom slopes, you know, very steep. The water lies between two very sharp slopes, with little branch branch valleys, and God knows where the drift will take you. It isn’t as if it was a level bottom. You never know where you are, with the dragging.’

‘Is there any need for you to be working?’ said Birkin. ‘Wouldn’t it be much better if you went to bed?’

‘To bed! Good God, do you think I should sleep? We’ll find ‘em, before I go away from here.’

‘But the men would find them just the same without you—why should you insist?’

Gerald looked up at him. Then he put his hand affectionately on Birkin’s shoulder, saying:

‘Don’t you bother about me, Rupert. If there’s anybody’s health to think about, it’s yours, not mine. How do you feel yourself?’

‘Very well. But you, you spoil your own chance of life—you waste your best self.’

Gerald was silent for a moment. Then he said:

‘Waste it? What else is there to do with it?’

‘But leave this, won’t you? You force yourself into horrors, and put a mill–stone of beastly memories round your neck. Come away now.’

‘A mill–stone of beastly memories!’ Gerald repeated. Then he put his hand again affectionately on Birkin’s shoulder. ‘God, you’ve got such a telling way of putting things, Rupert, you have.’

Birkin’s heart sank. He was irritated and weary of having a telling way of putting things.

‘Won’t you leave it? Come over to my place’—he urged as one urges a drunken man.

‘No,’ said Gerald coaxingly, his arm across the other man’s shoulder. ‘Thanks very much, Rupert—I shall be glad to come tomorrow, if that’ll do. You understand, don’t you? I want to see this job through. But I’ll come tomorrow, right enough. Oh, I’d rather come and have a chat with you than—than do anything else, I verily believe. Yes, I would. You mean a lot to me, Rupert, more than you know.’

He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again, until his face was a familiar one at the farmhouse. John, cooped up in the valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning the news of the outside world during the last twelve years. All this Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues. On such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her bright, happy eyes showed only too clearly that her young heart was no longer her own. Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms, but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her affections.

One summer evening he came galloping down the road and pulled up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.

“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing tenderly down into her face: “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but will you be ready to come when I am here again?”

“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing.

“A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my darling. There’s no one who can stand between us. ”

“And how about father?” she asked.

“He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all right. I have no fear on that head.”

“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there’s no more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad breast.

“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. “It is settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are waiting for me at the canon. Good-bye, my own darling — good-bye. In two months you shall see me.”

He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at what he was leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until he vanished from her sight. Then she walked back into the house, the happiest girl in all Utah.

Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of his adopted child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to the arrangement more than any argument could have done. He had always determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the Land of the Saints.