From the days that she had first known Harvey as the brilliant counsellor, she has felt that inextinguishable love which thrives on hope, and which will not diminish, even when hope is banished. Harvey and she had been friends. His brains had won him admittance to the social class in which she moved. When their attachment had grown to love, and he had asked her father's consent to their marriage, Gorman Purdy, the man of millions, had not hesitated to sanction the union.
What a joy had filled her heart when Harvey told her of his love! What happiness could have equalled hers when she received the news from Harvey that her father was willing that they should marry?
What has caused their separation?
This is the question that remains as yet unanswered in her mind.
"Is it possible that there can be such a divergence in the views of two men on a question of right and wrong," she asks herself, "that they will sacrifice the happiness of the one woman they profess to love, rather than agree upon a compromise, or one or the other change his views?"
"My father loves me; he lavishes his wealth upon me; I am his only child, his only comfort. He remains a widower so as to give me an undivided love. Yet he will not consent to my speaking of wedding Harvey Trueman. He tells me that Harvey is an enemy of mankind; a man who is seeking to disrupt civilization; that every word he utters is intended to inflame the minds of the people; to incite them to anarchy.
"And Harvey, can his words be false when his actions are so generous? What prompted him to give the miner's widow a thousand dollars? Was it a desire to do an act of charity, or was it as my father tells me, the act of a demagogue?
"How am I, a woman who knows nothing of politics or the principles of government, to decide a question that divides nations?
"What does all the advanced civilization of to-day amount to when it stands as a barrier to happy marriages?
"I cannot exchange places with a woman of the mining districts. My life has been so different that I should be miserable."