“Papa, did Mr. Temple advise you to do this?” questioned Mollie, with a start of surprise.
“Yes, and that is not the worst of it, either,” the man bitterly returned. “However, that fact does not excuse me for having yielded to such advice.”
“What do you mean by saying, ‘that is not the worst of it?’” queried Mollie, who had caught the peculiar flash that leaped into his eyes as he said it.
“Don’t ask me, dear,” he returned, with a sudden compression of his lips. “I should not have said that—it escaped me unawares.”
“Never mind; tell me everything, papa,” the girl persisted, and determined to get to the bottom of the matter, “even if you have lost all your money, you haven’t lost me, and I am egotistical enough to fancy that I am more to you than fortune.”
“Indeed, you are, my darling; more than many fortunes!” Richard Heatherford cried as he snatched her to his breast and covered her face with kisses. “Oh, Goldenrod, my life would not be worth living without you!”
“And it will be worth living with me, papa—oh, papa!” Mollie murmured as she clung to him, her eyes fastened upon his face with a nameless fear in their blue depths that smote him to the soul.
“Mollie!” he gasped as her meaning flashed upon him, “surely you did not think I would be guilty of that! No, no, Buttercup—my one priceless treasure, as long as God wills, my life will be very precious to me for your sake. When I said that half the suicides in the world were caused by just such despair as mine, I had no thought of anything like that. Do not fear, love, I could never be such a coward.”