“J'rome,” whispered the father, thrusting his old face into his son's, with an angelic expression.
“What is it, father?”
“You shall have my fifteen hundred, an' build a new mill.”
“Father, I'd die before I'd touch a dollar of your money!” cried Jerome, passionately, and, tears in his eyes, flung away out to the barn, whither he was bound, to feed the horse.
He watched all day for a chance to speak alone to Elmira, but she gave him none, until after supper that night. Then, when he beckoned her into the parlor, she followed him.
“Elmira,” he said, “don't feel any worse about this than you can help. I had to do it.”
“If you care more about strangers than you do about your own, that is all there is to it,” she said, in a quiet voice, looking coldly in his face.
“Elmira, it isn't that. You don't understand.”
“I have said all I have to say.”
“Let me tell you—”