'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, but I guess
you don't know how