Black Dan ran back toward the nearest tunnel mouth. The thud of the picks had stopped. The miners, men who work with death at their elbow, came pouring down and out, scrambling from stopes, running from the ends of drifts, swarming up ladders from places of remote, steaming darkness. White-faced, wild-eyed, not knowing what horror of sudden death awaited them, they came rushing toward the place where their chief stood, a grim-visaged figure at the mouth of the tunnel. He checked them with a raised hand, even at such a moment able to assert his command over them. “Keep cool, boys. You’re all right. There’s been an accident. It’s Barclay. For God’s sake, tell Marsden to keep those women back.” In the shaft house above, Rion, tired of waiting, was lounging up and down when the bell of one of the compartments gave an imperious summons for the cage to descend. “They’re coming up at last,” said Rion, moving to the edge of the shaft and stretching himself in yawning relief. “I never knew Easterners to stand the heat so long.” CHAPTER IX HOME On the Friday morning June rose with an oppression of death-like dread weighing on her. Jerry had only told her to hold herself in readiness for that day; she knew nothing further. But the morning was not half spent when a letter came from him, naming the time and place of their departure. As she read her dread deepened. The ardent words of love with which the letter began and ended had no power to overcome her sickened reluctance. She was moving onward toward an action which she contemplated with despair and yet toward which she continued inevitably to advance. There are many women like June, who, without the force to resist the importunities of conquering lovers, never lose their sense of sin. In the arms of the man they have surrendered to it is heavy at their hearts. The years do not lift it, and the men who have brought them to ruin grow to feel its chill and despise the woman who has not been strong enough to resist or completely give herself up. During the rest of the morning she remained in her room trying to sort her clothes and pack her bag. Her mind was in a state of stupefied confusion. She could find nothing, could not remember where anything had been placed. At times a sensation of nausea and feebleness swept over her, and she was forced to stop in the work she was doing, and sit down. When at midday the servant summoned her to lunch, the gathered possessions and souvenirs of years were scattered over the furniture and about the floor. In the afternoon she wrote the letter to the Colonel. She wrote rapidly, not letting herself pause to think, the pen flying over the paper. When it was finished, she sealed it without reading it over.