"Do you remember that night in Hamilton Gardens when you asked me to marry you?"
Stephen bowed. He could not speak. Even his great strength was only just enough.
"I refused you because I saw you were convinced that I did not care for you. If I had told you I loved you then you would not have believed it."
Stephen's hand gripped the mantelpiece. He was trembling from head to foot. His eyes never left her.
"But now the money is gone," she said, becoming paler than ever, "perhaps, now the dreadful money is gone, you will believe me if I tell you that I love you."
And so Stephen and Anne came home to each other at last—at last.
"My dear," said the Duke to Anne the following day, "this is a very extraordinary proceeding of yours. You refuse Vanbrunt when he is rich, and accept him when he is tottering on the verge of ruin. It seems a reversal of the usual order of things. What will your mother say?"
"I have already had a letter from her, thanking Heaven that I was not engaged to him. She says a good deal about how there is a Higher Power which rules things for the best."