"Why, Malviny! You know I hadn't. I could swear!"

"Don't swear, and don't let on to anybody but what you DID know it
was there. Now, Alvin Mulrady, listen to me." Her voice here took
the strident form of action. "Knock off work at the shaft, and
send your man away at once. Put on your things, catch the next
stage to Sacramento at four o'clock, and take Mamie with you."

"Mamie!" echoed Mulrady, feebly.

"You want to see Lawyer Cole and my brother Jim at once," she went
on, without heeding him, "and Mamie wants a change and some proper.
clothes. Leave the rest to me and Abner. I'll break it to Mamie,
and get her ready."

Mulrady passed his hands through his tangled hair, wet with
perspiration. He was proud of his wife's energy and action; he did
not dream of opposing her, but somehow he was disappointed. The
charming glamour and joy of his discovery had vanished before he
could fairly dazzle her with it; or, rather, she was not dazzled
with it at all. It had become like business, and the expression
"breaking it" to Mamie jarred upon him. He would have preferred to
tell her himself; to watch the color come into her delicate oval
face, to have seen her soft eyes light with an innocent joy he had
not seen in his wife's; and he felt a sinking conviction that his
wife was the last one to awaken it.

"You ain't got any time to lose," she said, impatiently, as he
hesitated.