t for a moment--ah, well, you've shown in a
hundred ways that you don't care--and I wouldn't have you come to me,
not caring. So I'm going to burn the paper, dear."

Margaret bowed her head. Had she ever known happiness before?

"It is not very flattering to me," she said, "but it shows that
you--care--a great deal. You care enough to--let me go. Ah--yes. You
may burn it now, Billy."

And promptly he tossed it into the flames. For a moment it lay
unharmed; then the edges caught and crackled and blazed, and their
heads drew near together as they watched it burn.

There (thought Billy) is the end! Ah, ropes, daggers, and poisons!
there is the end! Oh, Peggy. Peggy, if you could only have loved me!
if only this accursed money hadn't spoiled you so utterly! Billy was
quite properly miserable over it.

But he raised his head with a smile. "And now," said he--and not
without a little, little bitterness; "if I have any right to advise
you, Peggy, I--I think I'd be more careful in the future as to how I
used the money. You've tried to do good with it, I know. But every
good cause has its parasites. Don't trust entirely to the Haggages and
Jukesburys, Peggy, and--and don't desert the good ship Philanthropy
because there are a few barnacles on it, dear."

"You make me awfully tired," Miss Hugonin observed, as she rose to her
feet. "How do you suppose I'm going to do anything for Philanthropy or
any other cause when I haven't a penny in the world? You see, you've
just burned the last will Uncle Fred ever made--the one that left
everything to me. The one in your favour was probated or proved or
whatever they call it a week ago." I think Billy was surprised.

She stood over him, sharply outlined against the darkness, clasping
her hands tightly just under her chin, ludicrously suggestive of a
pre-Raphaelitish saint. In the firelight her hair was an aureole; and
her gown, yellow with multitudinous tiny arabesques of black velvet,
echoed the glow of her hair to a shade. The dancing flames made of her
a flickering little yellow wraith. And oh, the quaint tenderness of
her eyes!--oh, the hint of faint, nameless perfume she diffused! thus
ran the meditations of Billy's dizzied brain.

"Listen! I told you I burned the other will. I started to burn it. But
I was afraid to, because I didn't know what they could do to me if I
did. So I put it away in my little handkerchief-box--and if you'd had
a _grain_ of sense you'd have noticed t