"I've asked to see you alone, Miss O'Neill, because I want to make a
confession and restitution--to begin with," he told her abruptly.
She had a sense of suddenly stilled pulses. "That sounds very serious."
The young woman smiled faintly.
His face of chiseled granite masked all emotion. It kept under lock and
key the insurgent impulses that moved him when he looked into the sloe
eyes charged with reserve. Back of them, he felt, was the mystery of
purity, of maidenhood. He longed to know her better, to find out and
to appropriate for himself the woman that lay behind the fine veil of
flesh. She seemed to him delicate as a flame and as vivid. There would
come a day when her innocent, passional nature would respond to the love
of a man as a waiting harp does to skillful fingers.
"My story goes away back to the Klondike days. I told you that I knew
your father on Frenchman Creek, but I didn't say much about knowing him
on Bonanza."
"Mr. Strong has told me something about the days on Bonanza, and I knew
you would tell me more some day--when you wanted to speak about it." She
was seated in a low chair and the white throat lifted toward him was
round as that of a bird.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145