"I've known for a long time," Potch said.
Michael's gaze held him--the swimming misery of it; then, as if overwhelmed by the knowledge of what Potch must be thinking of him, it fell. Michael rose from his chair before the fire and stood before Potch, his mind darkened as by shutting-off of the only light which had penetrated its gloom. He stood so for some time in utter abasement and desolation of spirit, believing that he had lost a thing which had come to be of inexpressible value to him, the love and homage Potch had given him while they had been mates.
"I've always known, too," Potch said, "it was for a good enough reason."
Michael's swift glance went to him, his soul irradiated by that unprotesting affirmation of Potch's faith.
He dropped into his chair before the fire again. His head went into his hands. Potch knew that Michael was crying. He stood by silently--unable to touch him, unable to realise the whole of Michael's tragedy, and yet overcome with love and sympathy for him. He knew only as much of it as affected Sophie. His sympathy and instinct where Sophie was concerned enabled him to guess why Michael had done what he had.
"It was for Sophie," he said.
"I intended to give them back to Paul--when she was old enough to go away, Potch," Michael said after a while. "Then she went away; and I don't know why I didn't give them to him at once. The things got hold of me, somehow--for a while, at least. I couldn't make up my mind to give them back to him--kept makin' excuses.... Then, when I did make up my mind and went to get them, they were gone."
Potch nodded thoughtfully.
"You don't suspect anybody?" he asked.
Michael shook his head. "How can I? Nobody knew I had them, and yet ...
that night ... twice, I thought I had heard someone moving near me....
The memory of it's stayed with me all these years. Sometimes I think it means something--that somebody must have been near and seen and heard.
Then that seems absurd. It was a bright night; I looked, and there was no one in sight. There's only one person besides you ... saw ... I think--knew I had the stones...."
"Maud?"
Michael nodded. "She came into the room with you that night. You remember? ... And I've wondered since ... if she, perhaps, or Jun ... At any rate, Armitage knows, or suspects--I don't know which it is really.... He says he has proof. There's that stone I put in Charley's parcel--a silly thing to do when you come to think of it. But I didn't like the idea of leaving Charley nothing to sell when he got to Sydney; and that was the only decent bit of stone I'd got. Making up the parcel in a hurry, I didn't think what putting in that bit of stuff might lead to. But for that, I can't think how Armitage could have proof I had the stones except through Maud. And she's been in New York, and----"
"She may have told him she saw you the night she came for me," Potch said.
"That's what I think," Michael agreed.
They brooded over the situation for a while.
"Does Sophie know?" Michael's eyes went to Potch, a sharper light in them.
"Only that some danger threatens you," Potch said slowly. "Armitage told her."
"You tell her what I've told you, Potch," Michael said.
They talked a little longer, then Potch moved to go away.
"There's nothing to be done?" he asked.
Michael shook his head.
"Things have just got to take their course. There's nothing to be done, Potch," he said.
They came to him together, Sophie and Potch, in a little while, and Sophie went straight to Michael. She put her arms round his neck and her face against his; her eyes were shining with tears and tenderness.
"Michael, dear!" she whispered.
Michael held her to him; she was indeed the child of his flesh as she was of his spirit, as he held her then.
He did not speak; he could not. Looking up, he caught Potch's eyes on him, the same expression of faith and tenderness in them. The joy of the moment was beyond words.
Potch's and Sophie's love and faith were beyond all value, precious to Michael in this time of trouble. When he had failed to believe in himself, Sophie and Potch believed in him; when his life-work seemed to be falling from his hands, they were ready to take it up. They had told him so. In his grief and realisation of failure, that thought was a star--a thing of miraculous joy and beauty.
CHAPTER XVI
The men stood in groups outside the hall, smoking and yarning together before going into it, on the night John Armitage was to put his proposition for reorganisation of the mines before them. Each group formed itself of men whose minds were inclined in the same direction.
M'Ginnis was the centre of the crowd from the Punti rush who were prepared to accept Armitage's scheme. The Crosses, while they would not go over to the M'Ginnis faction, had a following--and the group about them was by far the largest--which was asserting an open mind until it heard what Armitage had to say. Archie and Ted Cross and the men with them, however, were suspected of a prejudice rather in favour of, than against, Armitage's outline of the new order of things for the Ridge since its main features and conditions were known. Men who were prepared at all costs to stand by the principle which had held the gougers of Fallen Star Ridge, together for so long, and whose loyalty to the old spirit of independence was immutable, gathered round George Woods and Watty Frost.
"Thing that's surprised me," Pony-Fence Inglewood murmured, "is the numbers of men there is who wants to hear what Armitage has got to say.
I wouldn't 've thought there'd be so many."
"I don't like it meself, Pony," George admitted. "That's why we're here.
Want to know the strength of them--and him."
"That's right," Watty muttered.
"Crosses, for instance," Pony-Fence continued. "You wouldn't 've thought Archie and Ted'd 've even listened to guff about profit-sharin'--all that.... But they've swallowed it--swallowed it all down. They say----"
George nodded gloomily. "This blasted talkin' about Michael's done more harm than anything."
"That's right," Pony-Fence said. "What's the strength of it, George?"
"Damned if I know!"
"Where's Michael to-night?"
Their eyes wandered over the scattered groups of the miners. Michael was not among them.
"Is he coming?" Pony-Fence asked.
George shrugged his shoulders; the wrinkles of his forehead lifted, expressing his ignorance and the doubt which had come into his thinking of Michael.
"Does he know what's being said?" Pony-Fence asked.
"He knows all right. I told Potch, and asked him to let Michael know about it."
"What did he say?"
"Tell you the truth, Pony-Fence, I don't understand Michael over this business," George said. "He's been right off his nest the last week or two. It might have got him down what's being said--he might be so sore about anybody thinkin' that of him, or that it's just too mean and paltry to take any notice of.... But I'd rather he'd said something....
It's played Armitage's game all right, the yarn that's been goin' round, about Michael's not being the man we think he is. And the worst of it is, you don't know exactly where it came from. Charley, of course--but it was here before him.... He's just stoked the gossip a bit. But it's done the Ridge more harm than a dozen Armitages could 've----"
"To-night'll bring things to a head," Watty interrupted, as though they had talked the thing over and he knew exactly what George was going to say next. "I reck'n we'll see better how we stand--what's the game--and the men who are going to stand by us.... Michael's with us, I'll swear; and if we've got to put up a fight ... we'll have it out with him about those yarns.... And it'll be hell for any man who drops a word of them afterwards."