undred thousand pounds. There's no talk of earning
bread-and-butter, sonny."

"It never entered my head," said Paul, rather dazed. "I suppose a
father would leave his money to his son. I didn't realize it." He
passed his hand over his eyes. "So many things have happened to-night.
Anyhow," he said, smiling queerly, in his effort to still a whirling
brain, "if there are no anxieties as to ways and means, so much the
better for Jane and me. I am all the more justified in asking you to
marry me. Will you?"

"Before I answer you, Paul dear," she replied steadily, "you must
answer me. I've known about the will, just like Bill, all the time--"

"She has that," confirmed the old man.

"So this isn't news to me, dear, and can't alter anything from me to
you."

"Why should it?" asked Paul. "But it makes my claim a little stronger."

"Oh, no," she replied, shaking her head. "It only--only confuses
issues. Money has nothing to do with what I'm going to ask you. You
said to-night you were going to live for the Truth--the real naked
Truth. Now, Paul dear, I want the real, naked Truth. Do you love that
woman?"

At her question she seemed to have grown from the common sense,
clear-eyed Jane into a great and commanding presence. She had drawn
herself to her full height. Her chin was in the air, her generous bust
thrown forward, her figure imperious, her eyes intense. And Paul too
drew himself up and looked at her in his new manhood. And they stood
thus for a while, beloved enemies.

"If you want the Truth--yes, I do love her," said he.

"Then how dare you ask me to be your wife?"

"Because the one is nonsensical and illusory and the other is real and
practical."

She flashed out angrily: "Do you suppose I can live my woman's life on
the real and practical? What kind of woman do you take me for? An
Amelia, a Patient Griselda, a tabby cat?"

Paul said: "You know very well; I take you for one of the
greatest-hearted of women. I've already said it to-night."

"Do you think I'm a greater-hearted woman than she? Wait, I've not
finished," she cried in a loud voice. "Your Princess--you cut her heart
into bits the other day, when you proclaimed yourself a low-born
impostor. She thought you a high-born gentleman, and you told her of
the gutter up north and the fried-fish shop and the Sicilian
organ-grinding woman. She, royalty--you of the scum! She left you. This
morning she learned worse. She learned that you were the son of a