Suddenly she put the candle down and sank into a chair, covering her face with her poor, gaunt hands....
And so the night passed.... The dawn was dim and rainy. It was about four o'clock that Alice, sitting on the floor, sleeping heavily, her head on the cushion of the chair, started, bewildered, at the noise of the opening door. Rebecca, in her gray dressing-gown, one hand shielding the flare of her candle, came abruptly into the room.
"Alice," she said, harshly, and stopped by the empty bed; then her eyes found the figure on the floor ("you ought to be in bed"), she said, in a brief aside; then: "Alice, I've been thinking it over. You can't take that money."
"I don't understand," Alice said, confused with sleep and tears.
"You can't take that money. If you do, your father would have to know. And he never must—he never must."
Alice pulled herself up from the floor and sat down in her big chair. "Not take the money?" she said, in a dazed way; "but it's mine."
"That's why you needn't take it. Thank God it was left to you, not just to 'her heirs.' Alice, I've gone all over it. I—I wanted you to take it"—Rebecca's voice broke; "yes, I—did."
"Well, it's mine," Alice repeated, bewildered.
Rebecca struck her hands together. "Yours not to take! Don't you see? You can save your father."
Alice, cringing, dropped her head on her breast with a broken word.