"Miss Burton, are you really Richard's betrothed?"
Nell's tremulous lips framed an affirmative, but never uttered it.
She held out her hand, showing the ring Dick had given her. Miss
Gale's recognition was instant, and her response was warm, sweet,
gracious.
"I think I am going to be very, very glad," she said, and kissed
Nell.
"Miss Burton, we are learning wonderful things about Richard,"
added Mr. Gale, in an earnest though shaken voice. "If you have
had to do with making a man of him--and now I begin to see, to
believe so--may God bless you!...My dear girl, I have not really
looked at you. Richard's fiancee!...Mother, we have not found him
yet, but I think we've found his secret. We believed him a lost
son. But here is his sweetheart!"
It was only then that the pride and hauteur of Mrs. Gale's face
broke into an expression of mingled pain and joy. She opened
her arms. Nell, uttering a strange little stifled cry, flew into
them.
Belding suddenly discovered an unaccountable blur in his sight.
He could not see perfectly, and that was why, when Mrs. Belding
entered the sitting-room, he was not certain that her face was
as sad and white as it seemed.
XV
BOUND IN THE DESERT
FAR away from Forlorn River Dick Gale sat stunned, gazing down into
the purple depths where Rojas had plunged to his death. The Yaqui
stood motionless upon the steep red wall of lava from which he had
cut the bandit's hold. Mercedes lay quietly where she had fallen.
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