h it had happened differently--" Here
she stopped, and taking up the little dog Charlie, settled him on her
knee. He was whimpering to be caressed, and she bent over his small
silky head to hide the burning drops that fell from her eyes despite
herself. "If it could only be altered!--but it can't--and the only thing
to do is to give the money away to those who need it as quickly as
possible----"

"Give it away!" answered Angus, bitterly--"Good God! Why, to give away
seven or eight millions of money in the right quarters would occupy one
man's lifetime!"

His voice was harsh, and his hand clenched itself involuntarily as he
spoke. She looked at him in a vague fear.

"No, Mary,"--he said--"You can't give it away--not as you imagine.
Besides,--there is more than money--there is the millionaire's
house--his priceless pictures, his books--his yacht--a thousand and one
other things that he possessed, and which now belong to you. Oh Mary! I
wish to God I had never seen him!"

She trembled.

"Then perhaps--you and I would never have met," she murmured.

"Better so!" and rising, he paced restlessly up and down the little
kitchen--"Better that I should never have loved you, Mary, than be so
parted from you! By money, too! The last thing that should ever have
come between us! Money! Curse it! It has ruined my life!"

She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his.

"What do you mean, Angus?" she asked, gently--"Why do you talk of
parting? The money makes no difference to our love!"

"No difference? No difference? Oh Mary, don't you see!" and he turned
upon her a face white and drawn with his inward anguish--"Do you
think--can you imagine that I would marry a woman with millions of
money--I--a poor devil, with nothing in the world to call my own, and no
means of livelihood save in my brain, which, after all, may turn out to
be quite of a worthless quality! Do you think I would live on your
bounty? Do you think I would accept money from you? Surely you know me
better! Mary, I love you! I love you with my whole heart and soul!--but
I love you as the poor working woman whose work I hoped to make easier,
whose life it was my soul's purpose to make happy--but,--you have
everything you want in the world now!--and I--I am no use to you! I can
do nothing for you--nothing!--you are David Helmsley's heiress, and with
such wealth as he has left you, you might marry a prince of the royal
blood if you cared--for princes are to be bought,--like