"Never more serious in my life."
Nan gazed at him in astonishment and broke into a low laugh.
"Of course, you're teasing me. You can't be in earnest in such an absurd dime-novel idea! Give away this enormous fortune, this power equal to the sway of kings which you can wield with a strength and dignity the man who made it never knew? You can't be in earnest?"
"I am," was the firm answer.
The woman placed her hand tenderly in his and nestled close to his side.
"Come, Jim, dear, this is a practical world, you have some common sense even if you are a man of genius; you're not insane!"
"I think not," he answered, soberly.
"You can not make this absurd demand on me," she repeated slowly, "knowing the awful price I paid for these millions?"
"It's because I know it that I make the demand," he went on, passionately. "We are face to face now, you and I, with all the little subterfuges and lies of life torn from our eyes. The fact that the price at which he bought you was high—say a hundred millions—does not change the fact. I refuse to share with the woman I love the price for which she sold herself, whether the sum be a hundred dollars or a hundred millions! I can forgive and have forgiven the wrong you've done me, but I could never share its conscious degradation."
A flush of anger overspread Nan's face.