She went back to the dining-room, where her daughter sat eating dinner, with a numbness in her limbs and a sense of dizziness in her brain, and dropping into a chair at the table gasped out:
"Do you know—what Captain Haney just said to me?"
"Not being a mind-reader, I don't," replied the girl, calmly, though she was moved by her mother's white, awed face.
"He wants you!"
Bertha flushed and braced both hands against the table as she replied, "Well, he can't have me!"
With the opposition in her daughter's tone, Mrs. Gilman was suddenly moved to argue.
"Think what it means, Bertie! He's rich. Did you know that? He owns two mines."
"I know he is a gambler and runs two saloons. You see, the boys keep me posted, and I'm not marrying a gambler—not this summer," she ended, decisively.
"But he's going to give that up, he says." He hadn't said this, but she was sure he would. "His income is a hundred thousand dollars a year. Think of that!"
"I don't want to think of it," the girl answered, frowning slightly. "It makes my head ache. Nobody has a right to so much money. How did he get it?"