rew his chair closer and took hold of the hand that
lay in her lap. She made no resistance.

"Shirley," he said, "do you remember that talk we had on the ship?
I asked you to be my wife. You led me to believe that you were not
indifferent to me. I ask you again to marry me. Give me the right
to take care of you and yours. I am the son of the world's richest
man, but I don't want his money. I have earned a competence of my
own--enough to live on comfortably. We will go away where you and
your father and mother will make their home with us. Do not let
the sins of the fathers embitter the lives of the children."

"Mine has not sinned," said Shirley bitterly.

"I wish I could say the same of mine," replied Jefferson. "It is
because the clouds are dark about you that I want to come into
your life to comfort you."

The girl shook her head.

"No, Jefferson, the circumstances make such a marriage impossible.
Your family and everybody else would say that I had inveigled you
into it. It is even more impossible now than I thought it was when
I spoke to you on the ship. Then I was worried about my father's
trouble and could give no thought to anything else. Now it is
different. Your father's action has made our union impossible for
ever. I thank you for the honour you have done me. I do like you.
I like you well enough to be your wife, but I will not accept this
sacrifice on your part. Your offer, coming at such a critical
time, is dictated only by your noble, generous nature, by your
sympathy for our misfortune. Afterwards, you might regret it. If
my father were convicted and driven from the bench and you found
you had married the daughter of a disgraced man you would be
ashamed of us all, and if I saw that it would break my heart."

Emotion stopped her utterance and she buried her face in her hands
weeping silently.

"Shirley," said Jefferson gently, "you are wrong. I love you for
yourself, not because of your trouble. You know that. I shall
never love any other woman but you. If you will not say 'yes' now,
I shall go away as I told my father I would and one day I shall
come back and then if you are still single I shall ask you again
to be my wife."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I shall travel for a year and then, may be, I shall stay a couple
of years in Paris, studying at the Beaux Arts. Then I may go to
Rome. If I am to do anything worth while in the career I have
chosen I must have that European training."