"I mean the—fortune. Georgy told me—how you—helped him to find it, and I—know how it came there, of course. Why did you—do it?"
"You didn't tell him—how it came there?" asked Bellew anxiously.
"No," she answered, "I think it would break his heart—if he knew."
"And I think it would have broken his heart if he had never found it," said Bellew, "and I couldn't let that happen, could I?" Anthea did not answer, and he saw that her eyes were very bright in the shadow of her lashes though she kept them lowered to the rose in her fingers.
"Anthea!" said he, suddenly, and reached out his hand to her. But she started and drew from his touch.
"Don't!" she said, speaking almost in a whisper, "don't touch me. Oh! I know you have paid off the mortgage—you have bought back my home for me as you bought back my furniture! Why?—why? I was nothing to you, or you to me,—why have you laid me under this obligation,—you know I can never hope to return your money—oh! why,—why did you do it?"
"Because I—love you, Anthea, have loved you from the first. Because everything I possess in this world is yours—even as I am."
"You forget!" she broke in proudly, "you forget—"
"Everything but my love for you, Anthea,—everything but that I want you for my wife. I'm not much of a fellow, I know, but—could you learn to—love me enough to—marry me—some day, Anthea?"
"Would you have—dared to say this to me—before to-night?—before your money had bought back the roof over my head? Oh! haven't I been humiliated enough? You—you have taken from me the only thing I had left—my independence,—stolen it from me! Oh! hadn't I been shamed enough?"