"Yesterday, when I received that blow in the river," and he lightly touched his plastered forehead, "I seemed to see in a flash the possibilities of the future in case of my death. My young wife frightened and alone—"
"Where is her father?"
"He said that he was going to Australia; and I made up my mind yesterday to speak to you,—to tell you that, spoiled child as she may appear, she is a worthy daughter of your house."
"What kind of a life is her father leading now?"
Justin took off his glasses and passed his handkerchief over his troubled eyes. "I do not know, but I am sure he solemnly promised my father that after his escapade here it would be an honest one. Knowing his family's wealth, I have thought that possibly he might be receiving money from them—"
"There is not a Gastonguay that would throw him a dime if he were starving," she said, with disdain.
"But his daughter," said Justin, and his whole face glowed with such sincerity of love that his companion turned her head away, "the innocent, beautiful girl whom I married in haste, partly because my whole soul was bound up in her, and partly because I wished to snatch her while still young and docile from an environment that might at some future day mean—"
"Disgrace," supplied Miss Gastonguay, when he hesitated, "bald, black, nasty disgrace that you wish now to attach to my unspotted name,—or," she went on, irrelevantly, "is it the money you are after? We rich people can see snares and pitfalls where you poor ones would not suspect them. We are so beset and encompassed by sticky fingers that would make some of our gold pieces adhere to them that we walk with garments drawn gingerly aside. What looks to you a very pretty and flattering appeal from youth to old age, may to me look no better than one of the cunningly adjusted gins your Bible speaks of. I have the honour to wish you good afternoon, young man," and she rose from her seat and made him a low, old-fashioned courtesy.
Justin rose too, and respectfully prepared to open the door for her. "May God bless you, Miss Gastonguay. My heart is lighter now that I have committed my darling's interests to you,—you know that I am not thinking solely of material interests. If I am cut off suddenly you will see that a woman's love and tenderness are not wanting. And I have a token for you from that brother. I will not offer it to you now, but when you are ready to receive it, I have it here—" and he pointed toward a safe in a corner.
Miss Gastonguay rushed by him and out of the bank like a flash, so that even the clerks who were used to her odd ways followed her with a smile.