"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because that man is yourself!"

In the instant of complete silence that followed they could hear
that the monotonous patter of rain on the roof had ceased.

"Then all this was in MY shaft, and the vein I thought I struck
there was YOUR lead, found three years ago in YOUR tunnel. Is that
your idea?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't sabe why you don't want to claim it."

"I have told you why I don't want it for my children. I go
further, now, and I tell you, Alvin Mulrady, that I was willing
that your children should squander it, as they were doing. It has
only been a curse to me; it could only be a curse to them; but I
thought you were happy in seeing it feed selfishness and vanity.
You think me bitter and hard. Well, I should have left you in your
fool's paradise, but that I saw to-night, when you came here, that
your eyes had been opened like mine. You, the possessor of my
wealth, my treasure, could not buy your children's loving care and
company with your millions, any more than I could keep mine in my
poverty. You were to-night lonely and forsaken, as I was. We were
equal, for the first time in our lives. If that cursed gold had
dropped down the shaft between us into the hell from which it
sprang, we might have clasped hands like brothers across the
chasm."