" she added.

"You are unhappy, Miss Douglas; I can always read your face. I will not
obtrude questions now, although most desirous to lift the burdens which
are resting upon you. For I have something to ask you. Will you listen
to me for a few moments?"

"Oh yes," said Anne, falling back into apathy, her eyes still on the
point of her slipper.

"It is considered egotistical to talk of one's self," began Dexter,
after a short silence; "but, under the circumstances, I trust I may be
pardoned." He took an easier attitude, and folded his arms. "I was born
in New Hampshire." (Here Anne tried to pay attention; from this
beginning, she felt that she must attend. But she only succeeded in
repeating, vaguely, the word "New Hampshire?" as though she had reasons
for thinking it might be Maine.)

"Yes, New Hampshire. My father was a farmer there; but when I was five
years old he died, and my mother died during the following year. A rich
relative, a cousin, living in Illinois, befriended me, homeless as I
was, and gave me that best gift in America, a good education. I went
through college, and then--found myself penniless. My cousin had died
without a will, and others had inherited his estate. Since then, Miss
Douglas, I have led a life of effort, hard, hard work, and bitter
fluctuations. I have taught school; I have dug in the mines; I have
driven a stage; I have been lost in the desert, and have lived for days
upon moss and berries. Once I had a hundred thousand dollars--the result
of intensest labor and vigilance through ten long years--and I lost it
in an hour. Then for three days, shovel in hand, I worked on an
embankment. I tell you all this plainly, so that if it, or any part of
it, ever comes up, you will not feel that you have been deceived. The
leading power of my whole life has been action; whether for good or for
ill--action. I am now thirty-eight years old, and I think I may say that
I--am no worse than other men. The struggle is now over; I am rich. I
will even tell you the amount of my fortune--"

"Oh no," said Anne, hurriedly.

"I prefer to do so," replied Dexter, with a formal gesture. "I wish you
to understand clearly the whole position, both as regards myself and all
my affairs."

"Myself and all my affairs," repeated itself buzzingly in Anne's brain.

"My property is now estimated at a little more than a million, and
without doubt it will increase in value, as it consists largely of land,
and especiall