ceedingly simple and easy:
"I knew you did not see the matter just as it is, or there would be no
difficulty about it. No one else seemed willing to speak to you, and so I
came myself."

He put out his hand toward the wine: she set it within his reach, and
resumed her place, one arm resting on the mantel-shelf, looking down at
him. There was only that sorrowful pity in her face with which any
large-hearted, healthy woman would look at a diseased, dying man.

"I don't deny," he said, coughing feebly, "that at first sight you have a
crude, illegal claim on my property--"

"My father--not I," throwing out her hand hastily.

"But even your claim admits of argument--argument," staring into the fire.
"Yet what if I should meet Virginie Morot yonder, and she should tax me
with having wronged her child?" looking about him with a sudden turn.

A tricky girl could have gained her point now on the instant. But Jane,
dull and straightforward as usual, knelt quickly down and took his fingers
in her own cool, strong hands, as if she were dealing with a nervous
child.

"Put my mother out of the question. She is not going to blame you for
doing what seems to you just. I want you to see that it is not just. It is
of the living, not the dead, you ought to think."

"Give me that medicine, can't you? My blood is like fire. Oh, you stand
there," after he had swallowed it, "with your dogged, calm way of putting
the question, as if it were a matter of a new gown. Hush!" as she began to
speak. "You are but a child. You're not even a clever child. How can you
understand the relations of a dying man to his Maker? It has been shown to
me how with this money I could make peace with--with Him. The way has been
opened for me to give it to the poor and the churches. Why, the rich man
was commanded to 'sell all that he had and give to the poor, and he should
have treasure in heaven.' The place is marked in the Bible there." His
hands worked feebly together, and he looked from side to side, avoiding
the face in front with its steady dark eyes. "Why should I take from the
poor to give to your father?"

"Because it is not yours to take or give."

He waited for her to go on, but she said no more. "I haven't forgotten
you, Jane. I've planned for you as your father never would have done.
There's good-fortune waiting for you which any woman would envy you. Go
now--go!"

"I did not come to you with any claim of my own," the indignant lips
tremblin