scovery. He did not
think it necessary to interrupt her by saying that he had heard Edmonson
give it with great relish; it seemed a good opportunity to learn whether
he had been telling the truth. The story was substantially the same, but
the enjoyment of the narrator was absent. "And, then," she added,
finishing, "this is not a bad investment."

"It may be now; I can't tell. We were under full sail; we have large
ventures, and to give out so much ready money may mean ruin. In a few
months, perhaps sooner, you may have the happiness of bearing a bankrupt
name."

Elizabeth's eyes were full of pity at the bitter tones in which she
heard suffering; she looked away and answered:--

"It is merely justice to me to let me prevent that, if I can."

"Good heavens!" he cried; and, struck with the readiness of her answer,
he studied her face. He would have liked to be sure from what motive she
was acting. Was it pride, or really pity? The thought of the last made
him furious; the other was at least endurable. "And you might not
prevent it," he added, watching to catch her eyes as she should turn
them back to answer. He was reasonably sure that it was pride.

"Then let me do this for my own sake," she said. "Listen to me calmly
for a moment. There is one thing you ought not to forget. Either I am
your wife, which God forbid, and I believe he has forbidden it, or I am
simply Katie's friend. In case of the first,--if I have destroyed your
happiness and Katie's, and my own,--what can money do for me? Life
offers me nothing; there are no possibilities before me so far as joy is
concerned; there is nothing left for me but to do the best I know how;
we must pick up the little things that lie along the way in life, you
and I; there will be nothing else for us; I have made you suffer so
much, and you deny me this little thing that can never balance any pain,
but is all I can dot? Why are you so unwise? Why should we make
ourselves more miserable than we need be?"

He sprang up. These very words--that he had often said to himself in
regard to his own life, that in effect he had said to her that
morning--how harsh they were, how they cut him! He was tender with his
wounded vanity. What man would like to hear that a woman has nothing
before her but misery if she be bound to himself?

"There is one condition," he cried, harshly, "under which I will accept
your money,--when you love me; when it is the gift of love." He laughed
bitterly.