pper's ready."

"I don't want anything."

"Mercy, Martin! You ain't sick?"

"No."

"But you must be hungry."

"No. I'm not."

Still the woman lingered; then making a heroic plunge, she faltered:

"There--there ain't nothin' the matter, is there?"

So genuine was the sympathy beneath the quavering inquiry that it brought
to Martin's troubled heart a gratifying sense of warmth and fellowship.

"No," he said, his impatience melting to gentleness. "Don't worry, Jane.
I've just got to do a little thinking by myself, that's all."

"It ain't money you're fussin' over then," said his sister, with a sigh of
relief.

"No--no, indeed. It's nothin' to do with money."

"I'm thankful for that."

Nevertheless as he mounted to his room, Martin reflected that after all it
was money which was at the storm center of his difficulties. He had not
thought at all of the matter from its financial aspect. Yet even if he had
done so in the first place, it would have had no influence upon his
decision. He didn't care a curse for the money. To carry his point, he
would have tossed aside a fortune twice as large. The issue he confronted,
stripped of all its distractions, was simply whether his love were potent
enough to overmaster his pride and bring it to its knees.

Even for the sake of Lucy Webster, whom he now realized he loved with a
passion more deep-rooted than he had dreamed, could he compel himself to
do the thing he had staked his oath he would not do?

Until this moment he had never actually examined his affection for the
girl. Events had shaped themselves so naturally that in cowardly fashion
he had basked in the joy of the present and not troubled his mind to
inquire whither the phantasies of this lotus-eater's existence were
leading him. When a clamoring conscience had lifted up its voice, he had
stilled it with platitudes. The impact of the crisis he now faced had,
however, jarred him out of his tranquillity and brought him to an
appreciation of his position.

He loved Lucy Webster with sincere devotion. All he had in the world he
would gladly cast at her feet,--his name, his heart, his worldly
possessions; only one reservation did he make to the completeness of his
surrender. His pride he could not bend. It was not that he did not wish to
bend it. The act was impossible. Keenly as he scorned himself, he could
not concede a victory to Ellen Webster,--not for any one on earth.

The jests of the townsfolk were noth