“Then remember, once and forever, that I take nothing from you or your people. I’d rather beg than take money that came from your father.”
“But he has nothing to do with it. It’s mine now. I’ve done you no injury, and it’s I that want you to take it. Won’t you take it from me?”
He spoke simply, almost wistfully, like a little boy. Mariposa answered:
“No—oh, Mr. Shackleton, why don’t you and your people let me alone? I won’t tell. I’ll keep it all a secret. But your mother torments me to go to Europe—and now you come! If I were starving, I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—take anything from any of you. I think you’re kind. I think you’ve just come to-day because you were sorry. But don’t talk about it any more. Let me be. Let me go along teaching here where I belong. Forget me. Forget that you ever saw me. Forget the miserable tie of blood there is between us.”
“That’s the thing I can’t forget. That’s the thing that worries me. It’s not the past. I’ve nothing to do with that. It’s the present that’s my affair. I can’t have everything while you have nothing. It don’t seem to me it’s like a man to act that way. It goes against me, anyhow. I don’t offer you this because of anything in the past; that’s my father’s affair. I don’t know anything about it. I offer it because I—I—I”—he stammered over the unfamiliar words and finally jerked out—“because I want to give back what belongs to you. That’s all there is to it. Please take it.”
She looked directly into his eyes and said, gravely:
“No. I’m sorry if it’s a disappointment, but I can’t.”
Then she suddenly looked down, her face began to quiver, and she said in a broken undertone:
“Don’t talk about it any more; it hurts me so.”
Win turned quickly away from her and picked up his hat. He was confused and disappointed, and relieved, too, for he had done the most difficult piece of work of his life. But, at the moment, his most engrossing feeling was sympathy for this girl, so bravely drawing her pride together over the bleeding of her heart.