he was so calm, and I
so carried away by excitement.

"Do not think of my father's words," I said. "Forget them. I shall be
perfectly happy so long as you love me."

"He will never relent," he answered gloomily. "He is known down town as
a man who makes up his mind once for all time."

"I would rather disobey my father than be false to you," I responded
firmly.

"Yes. But how are we to live?" he asked, rising from the sofa and
promenading the room nervously, with his hands in his pockets.

"Live?" I echoed.

"Unfortunately we should have to eat and drink, like everybody else. It
was a pity," he continued reflectively, "that you flung that money
overboard; we might have been very comfortable with that."

"Yes," I replied in a dazed sort of way.

"Was it the whole?" He stood looking at me with his head on one side.

"The whole of what?"

"Was all the property your father gave you in that box?"

"Certainly: I wonder you ask, Roger."

He walked up and down a few times and then took a seat beside me.

"Let us look at this matter in a common-sense way, Virginia. Heaven
knows I love you, and that I am as romantic in my feelings as any one
could desire. But suppose we were to marry without your father's
consent, what would be the result? We should starve. To speak frankly, I
find it difficult enough to make both ends meet as a single man. You are
used to every luxury and comfort, and have not been accustomed to
economize. Do not misunderstand me, Virginia," he continued, speaking
quickly, struck perhaps by my expression, which if my emotions were
adequately reflected therein must have made him uneasy. "I know that you
are capable of any sacrifice; it is I who am unwilling to permit you to
give up your fortune and your family for my sake. If there were any
chance of your father's relenting, if I thought there was a possibility
that time would make a difference in his views, I would not speak so.
But as it is, I see no alternative for us but an unsuccessful struggle
with poverty, that would end in unhappiness. It breaks my heart to come
to this conclusion, but justice to you, as well as common-sense, will
not let me suffer you to commit a folly which after the glamour of the
moment was over, you would regret."

It was the manner even more than the matter of his speech that stabbed
me to the heart. Had he spoken less calmly and deliberately, I might
have believed that he shrank from accepting my self-sacrifice, an