nd that would be my _all_. She was willing to pay. Am
I? That is the question."

"You would have to give it up, Anne," said he doggedly.

He saw the colour fade from her cheeks, and the lustre from her eyes.

"I am not sure that I could do it, Braden," she said, after a long
silence. Then, almost fiercely: "Will you tell me how I should go about
getting rid of all this money,--sensibly,--if I were inclined to do so? What
could I do with it? Throw it away? Destroy it? Burn--"

"There isn't much use discussing ways and means," he said with finality in
his manner. "I'm sorry we brought the subject up. I came here with a very
definite object in view, and we--well, you see what we have come to."

"Oh, I--I love you so!" came tremulously from her lips. "I love you so,
Braden. I--I don't see how I can go on living without--" She suppressed the
wild, passionate words by deliberately clapping her hands, one above the
other, over her lips. Red surged to her brow and a look of exquisite shame
and humiliation leaped into her eyes.

"Anne, Anne--" he began, but she turned on him furiously.

"Why do you lie to me? Why do you lie to yourself? You came here to-day
because you were mad with the desire to see me, to be near me, to--Oh, you
need not deny it! You have been crying out for me ever since the day you
last held me in your arms and kissed me,--ages ago!--just as I have been
crying out for you. Don't say that you came here merely to tell me that I
must not live in this house if it leads me to hope for--recompense. Don't
say that, because it is not the real reason, and you know it. You would
have remained in Europe if you were through with me, as you would have
yourself believe. But you are not through with me. You never will be. If
you cannot be fair with yourself, Braden, you should at least be fair with
me. You should not have come here to-day. But you could not help it, you
could not resist. It will always be like this, and it is not fair, it is
not fair. You say we never can be married to each other. What is there
left for us, I ask of you,--what will all this lead to? We are not saints.
We are not made of stone. We--"

"God in heaven, Anne," he cried, aghast and incredulous. "Do you know what
you are saying? Do you think I would drag you down, despoil you--"

"Oh, you would be honest enough to marry me--_then_," she cried out
bitterly. "Your sense of honour would attend to all that. You--"

"Stop!" he commanded, sta