"Refuse mine? That's just it. His money you could decline. He isn't on the ground. He doesn't know mines, mining, or miners. I know them all. I am here. I know the history of the Cross from the day it made its first mill run. I went five hundred feet under ground in a California mine when I was a month old. I've run from the lowest level to the top of the hoist, and from the grizzlies to the tables, for at least ten years of my life. I've absorbed it. I've lived in it. Had I the strength, there isn't a place in this, or any mine, that I couldn't fill. I'm backing my judgment. The Croix d'Or will prove good with depth. It may never pay until you get it. The blowing of your dam, the loss of your green lead, and all of those troubles, don't amount to that." She snapped a thumb and forefinger derisively, and went on before he could interject a word, so intent was she on assisting him and encouraging him, and proving to him that her judgment, through knowledge, was better than his. "Borrow my money, Dick, and sink." The name came so easily to her lips! It was the first time he had ever heard her utter it. It swept away his flying restraint even as the flame of powder snaps through a fuse to explosion; and he made a sudden, swinging step toward her, and caught her in his arms savagely, greedily, tenderly fierce. All his love was bursting, molten, to speech; but she lifted both hands and thrust herself away from him. "Oh, not that!" she said. "Not that! I wish you had not. It robs me of my wish. I wanted you to take my money as a comrade, not as my---- Oh, Dick! Dick! Don't say anything to me now, or do anything now! Please let me have my way. You will win. I know it! The Cross must pay. It shall pay! And when it does, then--then----" She stood, trembling, and abashed by her own words, before him. Slowly the delicacy of her mind, the romanticism of her dreams, the great, unselfish love within her, fluttering yet valiant, overwhelmed him with a sense of infinite unworthiness and weakness. He took his hat from his head, leaned over, and caught one of the palpitant hands in both his own, and raised it reverently to his lips. It was as if he were paying homage to heaven devoutly. "I understand," he said softly, still clinging to the fingers, every throb of which struck appealingly on his heartstrings. "Forgive me, and--yet--don't. Joan, little Joan, I can't take your money. It would make me a weakling. But I can make the Cross win. If it never had a chance before, it will have now. It must! God wouldn't let it be otherwise!" "Help me to my horse," she said faintly. "We mustn't talk any more. Let us keep our hopes as they are."