“Everybody says the same thing,” Elsie rose to go; “but I’m not obliged to take the advice. I think I can trust Mr. Allison to provide for my mother, and Gerty can marry again. There’s no reason she shouldn’t marry for money, if it’s the thing for me to do!”
“That’s quite different, my dear. Mrs. Seaman is a widow, and her husband’s memory is too dear to her—”
“Oh, hush! I get so tired of that argument! Let me tell you, Kimball Webb’s memory is as dear to me as if he had been my husband for a thousand years! And I shall never marry any one else,—never!”
Fenn Whiting continued to interest himself in the search for the missing Webb. He followed up the proceedings of the detective, Hanley, and brought reports, unsatisfactory as they were, to the Powell family.
“I feel embarrassed about it all,” Whiting said to Gerty, in Elsie’s absence, “for, truly, I love Elsie enough to want her to get Webb back and marry him. But if he never turns up,—and I don’t believe he ever will,—I don’t mind telling you that I haven’t given up hope of yet winning Elsie for myself. But not before her birthday. I’m not a fortune-hunter, and rather than be thought so, I’d really rather take her without the money, than with it.”
“But it would mean so much to her,” demurred Gerty.
“Yes, and to all of you. I’ve a good income, and it would be entirely at Elsie’s disposal, and I know her well enough to know how she would feel toward her family. But, my income isn’t a princely one, and so, the matter of the inheritance would be up to Elsie herself. I’d be thankful if she’d marry me, say in a year, or after she gives up her last hope of ever seeing Kimball again. Do you think she’d do that, Gerty? do you?”
Whiting was very much in earnest, and indeed, it was easy to believe in his great love for Elsie. He said little to her about it, but when in her presence he watched her with an expression of devotion that seemed all the greater for being untold.
He was at the house one afternoon, when Elsie came in, bringing Joe Allison with her.
Gerty opened the subject of the inheritance, making no secret of her opinion that Elsie ought to marry before her birthday.