"But you talk as if you were," he said less roughly. "You mustn't run away from the vicar just when he is going to take you to the lawyer's to certify who you are, and see that you get your money."
"But I don't want to go with the vicar—I want to go with you. You said you would take me with you." She was almost in tears now.
"Yes—but don't you—don't you understand that—that," he stammered; then, temporising, "but I can wait."
"Can't the vicar wait?" said Mary Ann. He had never known her show such initiative.
He saw that it was hopeless—that the money had made no more dint upon her consciousness than some vague dream, that her whole being was set towards the new life with him, and shrank in horror from the menace of the vicar's withdrawal of her in the opposite direction. If joy and redemption had not already lain in the one quarter, the advantages of the other might have been more palpably alluring. As it was, her consciousness was "full up" in the matter, so to speak. He saw that he must tell her plain and plump, startle her out of her simple confidence.
"Listen to me, Mary Ann."
"Yessir."
"You are a young woman—not a baby. Strive to grasp what I am going to tell you."
"Yessir," in a half sob, that vibrated with the obstinate resentment of a child that knows it is to be argued out of its instincts by adult sophistry. What had become of her passive personality?
"You are now the owner of two and a half million dollars—that is about five hundred thousand pounds. Five—hundred thousand—pounds. Think of ten sovereigns—ten golden sovereigns like that Mrs. Leadbatter gave you. Then ten times as much as that, and ten times as much as all that"—he spread his arms wider and wider—"and ten times as much as all that, and then"—here his arms were prematurely horizontal, so he concluded hastily but impressively,—"and then FIFTY times as much as all that. Do you understand how rich you are?"