The City of Numbered Days

"But Cortwright and Schermerhorn – I promised them – "

"Mr. Leshington carried out your promise and helped them get the money out of the bank vault before the mob sacked the Niquoia Building and dynamited it. But at the hotel they were arrested on the order of the bank examiner, and everything was taken away from them. We haven't heard yet what is going to be done with them."

"And Gomorrah?" he asked.

She slipped an arm under his shoulders and raised him so he could look out upon the mountain-girt sea dimpling under the morning breeze.

"There is where it was," she said soberly, "where it was, and is not, and never will be again, thank God! Mr. Leshington waited until everybody had escaped, and then he shut the waste-way gates."

Brouillard sank back upon the pillows of comfort and closed his eyes.

"Then it's all up to me and the hundred thousand," he whispered. "And I'll get it … honestly, this time."

The violet eyes were smiling when he looked into them again.

"Is she – the one incomparable she – worth it, Victor?"

"Her price is above rubies, as I told you once a long time ago."

"You wouldn't let pride – a false pride – stand in the way of her happiness?"

"I haven't any; her love has made me very humble and – and good, Amy, dear. Don't laugh: it's the only word; I'm just hungering and thirsting after righteousness enough to be half-way worthy of her."

"Then I'll tell you something else that has happened. Father and Stevie have reorganized the 'Little Susan' Mining Company, dividing the stock into four equal parts – one for each of us. You must take your share, Victor. It will break father's heart if you don't. He says you got it back for him after it was hopelessly lost, and that is true."

He had closed his eyes again, and what he said seemed totally irrelevant.

"'And after the man had climbed the fourth mountain through all its seven stages, he saw a bright light, and it blinded him so that he stumbled and fell, and a great darkness rose up to make the light seem far beyond his reach. Then the light came near, and he saw that it was Love, and that the darkness was in his own soul.' … Kiss me, Amy, girl, and then go and tell your father that he is a simple-hearted old spendthrift, and I love him. And if you could wire Castner, and tell him to bring a license along – "

"O boy – foolish boy!" she said. "Wait: when you are well and strong again…"

But she did not make him wait for the first of the askings; and after a healing silence had fallen to show the needlessness of speech between those who have come through darkness into light, he fell asleep again, perhaps to dream that the quieting hand upon his forehead was the touch of Love, angel of the bright and shining way, summoning him to rise up and go forward as a soul set free to meet the dawning day of fruition.

The End