e was: it scared me
when I found out about him, and he was so handsome and full of fun and
spirits, and generous! I never knew anybody like him. Honest, I never
expected he'd want to marry me. He didn't at first,--it was only after
a while. I never asked him to, and when he began to talk about it I told
him it would cut him off from his swell friends, and I knew his father
might turn him loose. Oh, it wasn't the money! Well, he'd get mad all
through, and say he never got along with the old man, and that his
friends would have to take me, and he couldn't live without me. He said
he would have me educated, and bought me books, and I tried to read them.
I'd have done anything for him. He'd knocked around a good deal since
he'd been to Harvard College,--he wasn't what you'd call a saint, but his
heart was all right. And he changed, too, I could see it. He said he
was going to make something out of himself.

"I didn't think it was possible to be so happy, but I had a feeling all
along, inside of me, that it couldn't come off. I had a little flat in
Rutger Street, over on the south side, and everything in the world I
wanted. Well, one day, sure enough, the bell rang and I opened the door,
and there stood a man with side whiskers staring at me, and staring until
I was frightened to death. I never saw such eyes as he had. And all of
a sudden I knew it was his father.

"'Is this Miss Marcy?'" he said.

"I couldn't say anything at all, but he handed me his card and smiled,
I'll never forget how he smiled--and came right in and sat down. I'd
heard of that man all my life, and how much money he'd made, and all
that. Why, up in Madison folks used to talk about him--" she checked
herself suddenly and stared at Hodder in consternation. "Maybe you know
him!" she exclaimed. "I never thought!"

"Maybe I do," he assented wearily. In the past few moments suspicion had
become conviction.

"Well--what difference does it make--now? It's all over, and I'm not
going to bother him. I made up my mind I wouldn't, on account of him,
you understand. I never fell that low--thank God!"

Hodder nodded. He could not speak . . . . The woman seemed to be
living over again that scene, in her imagination.

"I just couldn't realize who it was sitting there beside me, but if I
hadn't known it wouldn't have made any difference. He could have done
anything with me, anyway, and he knew how to get at me. He said, now
that he'd seen me, that he was sure I