Her ambition must be abandoned, and if she failed to find the silver, she would have to resume her monotonous duties at the school.

She was beginning to find them strangely dreary.

Then George had warned her against sacrificing her youth, and perhaps all her life, to the pursuit of a shadow.

Her friends did not believe in the silver, and she doubted if she could find the vein.

Failure might leave her sour and the hardships break her health; she would come back with her savings exhausted to toil and deny herself again.