In a vigorous undertone, the voice with new life in it told why Nathaniel Mar didn’t blame any young man—there was more treasure in the North than even the Klondiker dreamed. Mar had known it all along—and then the story. In spite of the girl’s listlessness when he began, he could feel directly that the thing was taking hold of her. She was intensely still; that was because she was being “held,” and small wonder! It was a better story than he had realized. It took hold of him even, who knew it so well. Before he got to the end, his voice was shaking, and he leaned forward thirsting to see an answering excitement in the young face at his knee. But the darkness shrouded it, and he went on. He wished she would speak or move. Always so still, that girl! Now he was telling her of his home-coming from that barren coast in the North—explaining, excusing what, by this new lurid light of the Klondike, seemed inexcusable—his never going back. He tried to reconstruct for her the obstacles—huge, insurmountable; the long illness, and the new wife; the post at the bank; the children, poverty, skepticism and the obscuring dust of the years. And lo! as he disturbed these ashes, he saw afresh the agonies they hid—remembered with a growing chill, what had befallen before whenever he told this story; saw the tolerant smile of the smug young bankers; saw the dull embarrassment in Elihu Cox’s eye; heard Mrs. Mar leading the family chorus, “You’ve got to _show_ me!” Even Hildegarde might ask—he hastened to forestall the dreaded word. “There was nothing to _show_,” he said, “absolutely nothing to prove it wasn’t a dream.” And she made no sign that for her either it was more than fantasy. He wondered miserably why he had told her. “Of course it was all long before anybody had heard of the Klondike,” he said, and he drew a heavy breath. “The theory was, that geologically speaking, gold couldn’t exist up there, and even people who weren’t geologists agreed it couldn’t be got out if it _was_ there”—all the confidential earnestness had vanished out of the voice, and he paused like one very weary. “Nobody believed—” He tried to go on, and to speak as usual, but memory, master of the show, brought up Trenn—Trenn with the look he had worn the day his father had told him the great secret. Mar drew back into the deeper shadow. But the critical boy face found his father out, and stung him in the dark. He was an old fool. What had possessed him to rake it all up again. Oh, yes, he said bitterly in his heart, there was one member of his family who hadn’t yet smiled and said, “_Show me._ I’m from Missouri.” It was Hildegarde’s turn. “Well, my girl,” he ended miserably, “that’s the story that nobody believed.”