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Updated: May 4, 2025
Just now it had seemed so clear that only one thing could save her from clacking diatribes, from torture under the tongues of Ernestines and Mabels and daily newspapers marriage with Gratton. But Gratton was gone and Mark King was here! If she married King! The "judge" was still here. King was her father's friend; between men like them there was nothing which would be denied when friendship asked.
Brodie called out loudly, his speech dripping with his habitual vileness; he shouted: "Gratton! Better step out lively like a man now. We got you anyway." Then he began to gather the scattered firewood; a match flared in his hand; his face leaped out of the dark like a devil's. Or a madman's, a man's mad with a rage which lusted for the killing of another man.
King was gone? Then not for men to bring help to Gloria but to aid him in carrying off the gold. Having brought Gloria here so that she could not tell others what she knew, he left her here with the same purpose; so Gratton would have done! King would have hidden it here; at least some of it.
And Gratton stood again, his feet glued to the ground; she could see the flash of his teeth gnawing at his fingers. "Trying to make a sneak for it!" boomed Brodie. "I'll show you " "Not yet, Brodie, you big fool!" yelled Benny. "This is only a sackful, and not full at that. It's the rest of it we're after the whole lousy mess. He's got to show us where this come from."
Something had happened; some one had telegraphed for him to come. Gloria was aquiver with excitement. She watched Gratton while he was watching the road; he, too, was tense and eager. When he stopped the car she got down, not knowing just what to do or say. He led the way to the little "hotel," and she followed.
Outside, coming nearer swiftly, were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was too soon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, and returned. A deep, heavy bass voice drowned out the others; it was like a low-throated growl, ominous, sinister. Gloria whirled again, this time toward the dark into which Gratton had gone.
Gratton; was gone all night, no one knew where; Mildred Carter who was as good as married to Bob Dwight of the Chronicle! And the emergency hospitals Gloria with never a tear coming in her hour of greatest distress sat rocking back and forth on her chair, crying: "Oh, I wish I were dead!"
Mark King, Gratton, Brodie figures to race through her brain, to confuse her with their own contentions, to baffle and bewilder. Suddenly she felt utterly alone, hopelessly, helplessly alone. She wanted her mother, and with the impulse wheeled back toward the man watching her. "I want to use the long-distance telephone," she said. "Where is it?"
Gloria excused herself lightly and escaped into the arms of Gratton himself. Escaped! King understood; that was the word for it. He watched them; saw Gratton whisper something into her ear, saw Gloria toss her head, saw her cheeks flush. Then Gratton laughed and she laughed with him. They danced wonderfully together, swaying together like two reeds in the same gentle wind.
And yet, as she sat swallowed up in the big chair, for a space of time she was in a spell, caught up and whirled away from those about her; she forgot Gratton with the white, angry face; she had no eyes for Mark King or for Summerling, Steve Jarrold or Jim Spalding. She was thinking of another day, two years ago, when she and her mother had been alone in this room.
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