eally my worst."

He rose and walked around the room, unconscious of the dark shadow that
also walked austerely outside the window. "This money--it is a great
thing that has happened to me. It is difficult to realize. Don't mind
my walking up and down; it soothes me and I'm excited too, I think."

Pauline seemed dazed.

"Is there a title? Is it much--the money that has been left you, I
mean? Very much?"

"A good deal, but no title." And Crabbe could not and did not try to
suppress the satisfied smile which told how he had gained in
self-respect during the last few days.

"I expect you'll think it a good deal. Of course in England it will be
different. There must be two houses with it; a town house--no, that
was sold a long while ago, I believe; anyway, there would be more to do
with it over there than on this side. I wonder how soon I ought to go."

"Go! You are going! But how much is it?"

"Oh! Didn't I say? About ten thousand; pounds you know, Pauline,
pounds, not dollars."

"Ten thousand pounds!"

"A nice little sum, lady dear?"

"All that money yours?"

"Yes, and not a penny too much, not a penny too much. I have to
revenge myself on fate, or Providence, or whatever you call it, for
these years of misery. I have to think of what I might have done and
lose no time in doing it. Pauline, I must think of you."

A softer mood held him now and he dropped upon his knee and laid his
head upon her lap, but she could not follow his swift changes of
emotion; the mention of the money had obliterated every other thought,
and whether it was the woman in her or the potential miserliness of her
race--the Clairvilles were traditionally stingy--she seemed unable to
get away from the mere image of the ten thousand pounds.

"But, _Mon Dieu_, what a great change there will be! You will be
everything and I shall be nothing! A poor actress, a doubtful lady!
Oh! I shall be nothing to you, I can see, I can see! _Mon Dieu_, but
this is only to bring more trouble upon me!"

Crabbe, as he will still be called, was at this much astonished. To do
him justice he had for some time, ever since Ringfield's advent in the
village in fact, found himself wishing that he might sincerely reform
and offer Pauline the honour of marriage, and with it some hopes of a
respectable competence.

"What nonsense are you saying?" he returned angrily. "Isn't money what
we both require, what we have always required? And here i