The Nether Millstone

by Fred M. White

"Don't," she whispered. "Oh, please don't remind me of that, Ralph. From the bottom of my heart I love you; I must have loved you from the very first. What does it matter what you are, so long as you are what you are--a good man, with a kind heart for a foolish girl like me? I am prepared to share your lot, and go where you like, Ralph; anywhere you choose to take me. We shall be very poor, I suppose, but that does not matter. I am glad, glad that the day came when I had to leave the Hall."

"And if you never return you will not regret it, Mary?"

"No, Ralph, not with you by my side. And as to poverty, why, it could not be worse than what I have gone through lately. We shall be very poor, Ralph."

"Not so very poor," Ralph smiled. There was nobody near to see them, so the girl's head rested happily on Ralph's shoulder, his arm round her waist. "Dearest, I have a confession to make to you. We are not poor at all."

"But I thought that you had lost everything, Ralph. That Mr. Mayfield had your money. But don't let us talk about him. It makes me hot and cold all over. To think that at one time there was more than a possibility that I should----"

"No, there was never the slightest possibility," said Ralph. "I have had all the cards in the game from the very first. Mary, I am going to tell you a little story; it is the history of a man who passed most of his early life in America, where he did not see many people. He was quite a well-born man, but his father had quarrelled with his relatives, and so he had not all the advantages which were due to his station. But he was well brought up, and prided himself that he had a high sense of honour.

"Well, in time, he came to Europe, and then he met the one woman that he needed. She was very lovely, very proud, and very distant. But that young man could see what lay under her pride, and he determined to win her for his wife. She liked him, but she refused him. And for two years he did not meet her again. Then he came to England, and accident brought those two together again. In the meantime, the girl's father had come into possession of the family estates, and the girl was more proud and distant than ever. And still that young man was not dismayed.

"And now comes the strange part of my story. The young man, whose father had died in the meantime, had come here to claim a title and a property. He had not known anything of this till his father died, but he came, and his grandmother recognized him at once. But that very same property and title had passed to the girl's father. Now, the young man might have told the girl this, and doubtless she would have married him. But he was a romantic young man, and desired to be married for his own sake. Then another claimant to the property turned up, and the young man pretended to back this impostor's claim. He did this, so that the girl should go out in the world, as he felt that she would, and get her own living. And his estimate of the girl was correct, for she did so."

"Go on," Mary whispered. "You can't tell how interested I am."

"Well, it was even as the young man had expected. The carefully-planned plot succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations. The girl went out into the world, and almost at once her better nature began to prevail. She saw the world through other eyes; she learned what a wonderful and complex thing humanity is. And when that young man saw the girl again he was astonished and delighted. He did not regret his plot in the least. He knew now that here was the real girl that he loved, deprived of her pride and hauteur, palpitating with love and tender sympathy. . . . In your case would you have forgiven that man, Mary?"