're the sort to show it off. I've got
the foundations of that fortune, and the proof of it right here. And I
tell you,"--his jaw was set,--"I tell you that some day Eliphalet Hopper
will be one of the richest men in the West."

He had stopped, facing her in the middle of the way, his voice strong,
his confidence supreme. At first she had stared at him in dumb wonder.
Then, as she began to grasp the meaning of his harangue, astonishment was
still dominant,--sheer astonishment. She scarcely listened. But, as he
finished, the thatch of the summer house caught her eye. A vision arose
of a man beside whom Eliphalet was not worthy to crawl. She thought of
Stephen as he had stood that evening in the sunset, and this proposal
seemed a degradation. This brute dared to tempt her with money. Scalding
words rose to her lips. But she caught the look on Eliphalet's face, and
she knew that he would not understand. This was one who rose and fell,
who lived and loved and hated and died and was buried by--money.

For a second she looked into his face as one who escapes a pit gazes over
the precipice, and shuddered. As for Eliphalet, let it not be thought
that he had no passion. This was the moment for which he had lived since
the day he had first seen her and been scorned in the store. That type of
face, that air,--these were the priceless things he would buy with his
money. Crazed with the very violence of his long-pent desire, he seized
her hand. She wrung it free again.

"How--how dare you!" she cried.

He staggered back, and stood for a moment motionless, as though stunned.
Then, slowly, a light crept into his little eyes which haunted her for
many a day.

"You--won't--marry me?" he said.

"Oh, how dare you ask me!" exclaimed Virginia, her face burning with the
shame of it. She was standing with her hands behind her, her back against
a great walnut trunk, the crusted branches of which hung over the bluff.
Even as he looked at her, Eliphalet lost his head, and indiscretion
entered his soul.

"You must!" he said hoarsely. "You must! You've got no notion of my
money, I say."

"Oh!" she cried, "can't you understand? If you owned the whole of
California, I would not marry you." Suddenly he became very cool. He
slipped his hand into a pocket, as one used to such a motion, and drew
out some papers.

"I cal'late you ain't got much idea of the situation, Miss Carvel," he
said; "the wheels have been a-turning lately. You're poor, bu