“Don’t, Jane,” said Clayton sadly. “If it had been just you, believe me, I wouldn’t have done it, for I knew from the start that it would only hurt me in your eyes, but I couldn’t think of that dear old man living in the hole we found here. Won’t you please believe that I did it just for him and give me that little crumb of pleasure at least?”
“I do believe you, Mr. Clayton,” said the girl, “because I know you are big enough and generous enough to have done it just for him—and, oh Cecil, I wish I might repay you as you deserve—as you would wish.”
“Why can’t you, Jane?”
“Because I love another.”
“Canler?”
“No.”
“But you are going to marry him. He told me as much before I left Baltimore.”
The girl winced.
“I do not love him,” she said, almost proudly.
“Is it because of the money, Jane?”