"I am awfully sorry, but the thing can't be helped now." Brown was too sick at heart to reply.

The mine was gone, and with it all the splendid castles he and Kalman had been building for the last six months.

He feared to meet his friend.

With what heart now could he ask that this brute, who had added another to the list of the wrongs he had done, should be forgiven?
It was beyond all human strength to wipe out from one's mind such an accumulation of injuries.

Well for Brown and well for his friend that forty miles lay before him.