“I would not cause you a moment’s unnecessary pain, Editha, but I must be firm in this decision. Forgive me if I wound you; but, on the whole, I am glad that Mr. Dalton win a name and position entirely by my own merits. By my own strong arm will I carve out my future and win my way in the world; by my own indomitable will and energy, with the help of a greater than I, I will rise to honor, and not upon the foundation that another has built,” he concluded, with an earnestness and solemnity that made Editha’s heart thrill with pride and the conviction of his ultimate success.
“You are very brave,” she said, with admiring but still wistful eyes. “But suppose Uncle Richard had added a codicil to his will in your favor, what then?”
A smile of amusement curled his lips.
“Then I suppose the wheels of my car of ambition would have been unavoidably clogged with this fortune. It would not then have been optional with me whether I would have it or not.”
“It shall not be now; the money is not mine—I will not keep it. I should be as bad as those wretches who robbed us, and then left you to suffer for their crime,” Editha exclaimed, passionately, and almost in despair at his obstinacy.
“I do not see how you can do otherwise than keep it; every one will tell you that it is legally yours.”
“There is many a moral wrong perpetuated under the cloak of ‘legality,’” she began, somewhat sarcastically, then continued, more earnestly: “My proud, self-willed knight, whose watchwords are truth and honor, whose life is to be ‘foursquare,’ do you think there are no others whose natures are reaching out after the same heights? There are others, Earle,” she said, more softly, with glowing cheeks and drooping lids, “who look with longing eyes toward the ‘jasper walls,’ and ‘gates of pearl;’ and can one be ‘true and honorable’ and keep what does not belong to one?”
“How can I convince you, Editha, that I cannot take this money?”
“But what will you do, Earle? How will you begin life again?” she asked, anxiously.
“I have a little, enough for that, laid by; and now, with three years’ interest added, it will be sufficient to give me a start, and I shall do very well. Do not allow my refusal to comply with your wishes to disturb you. Try to imagine that if Mr. Forrester had never known me he would never have thought of making a change in the disposition of his property,” Earle concluded, lightly.