“I’ll never take it, never!”
“Come back here, and I will explain,” Tom said, and rather reluctantly Rena went back and resumed her seat beside him, while her aunt, scarcely less excited, asked:
“Is it a joke?”
“Not a bit of it. It’s true as the Gospel. Rex bought this house and has given it to Rena, with money enough to furnish it.”
“But why did he do it?” Rena asked, and very briefly Tom told her, while she listened with the tears streaming down her face and a strange feeling stirring in her heart.
Tom made her understand the will as she never had before, and that eighty thousand dollars were Rex’s in virtue of his having proposed to her and been rejected. Rena was a woman and something like resentment flashed up for a moment as she said:
“So all that fine talk about love and my pulse beating in unison with his was put on for the sake of getting the money?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Tom said. “He cared for you very much—loved you, if that term suits you better. He told me so, and if you had not been engaged to me he would have tried to win you for himself, I know Rex, the best fellow that ever lived, and the most generous. I tried to dissuade him from doing what he has, but I might as well talk to the wind. He is determined, and so I turn the matter over to you, who can accept or reject, as you please.”
“I reject!” Rena said decidedly. “Do you think I can accept so great a gift from Mr. Travers?”
“But, Rena, consider the peculiar circumstances,” Mrs. Graham began.