The girl in the blackness without the candle-shine moved slightly.

“What’s that?” asked Dunke, startled.

“What’s what?”

“That noise.  Some one moved.”

Dunke’s revolver came swiftly from his pocket.

“I reckon it must a-been the girl.”

“What girl?  Miss Kinney?”

Dunke’s hard eyes fastened on the other like steel augers.

Margaret came forward and took wraithlike shape.

“I want you to take me to Mrs. Collins, Mr. Dunke,” she said.

The steel probes shifted from Struve to her.

“What did you hear, Miss Kinney?  This man is a storehouse of lies.  I let him run on to see how far he would go.”

Struve’s harsh laugh filled the tunnel.

“Take me to Mrs. Collins,” she reiterated wearily.

“Not till I know what you heard,” answered Dunke doggedly.

“I heard everything,” she avowed boldly.  “The whole wretched, miserable truth.”

She would have pushed past him, but he caught her arm.

“Let me go!”

“I tell you it’s all a mistake.  I can explain it.  Give me time.”

“I won’t listen, I want never to see either of you again.  What have I ever done that I should be mixed up with such men?” she cried, with bitter despair.

“Don’t go off half-cocked.  ’Course I’ll take you to Mrs. Collins if you like.  But you got to listen to what I say.”

Another candle glimmered dimly in the tunnel and came toward them.  It presently stopped, and a voice rolled along the vault.

“Hello, there!”

Margaret would have known that voice anywhere among a thousand.  Now it came to her sweet as water after a drought.  She slipped past Dunke and ran stumbling through the darkness to its source.

“Mr. Neill!  Mr. Neill!”

The pitiful note in her voice, which he recognized instantly, stirred him to the core.  Astonished that she should be in the mine and in trouble, he dashed forward, and his candle went out in the rush.  Groping in the darkness her hands encountered his.  His arms closed round her, and in her need of protection that brushed aside conventions and non-essentials, the need that had spoken in her cry of relief, in her hurried flight to him, she lay panting and trembling in his arms.  He held her tight, as one who would keep his own against the world.

“How did you get here—­ what has happened?” he demanded.

Hurriedly she explained.

“Oh, take me away, take me away!” she concluded, nestling to him with no thought now of seeking to disguise her helpless dependence upon him, of hiding from herself the realization that he was the man into whose keeping destiny had ordained that she was to give her heart.

“All right, honey.  You’re sure all safe now,” he said tenderly, and in the blackness his lips sought and met hers in a kiss that sealed the understanding their souls had reached.