"I want you to understand, my dear," he began nervously, "that you are free to act just as you will. Mr. Kimberley gave these into my hands this morning"--showing her the papers. "He gave them freely, as a gift. If I could accept them I should be free from the nightmare of debt. But in the same breath with that unconditional gift, he asked me for your hand in marriage."
She kept silence.
"You know our miserable necessities, Ella," he pleaded. "But I can't force your inclinations in a matter like this, my dear."
She ran to him, and threw her arms about his neck.
"If it depends upon me to end your troubles, my dear, they are ended already."
"Shall I," he asked lamely, "make Kimberley happy?"
She answered simply, "Yes."
Kimberley came to luncheon next day. Lady Ella gave him a hand like marble, and he kissed it. Her father, anxious to preserve a seeming satisfaction, put his arm about her waist and kissed her. Her cheek was like ice and her whole figure trembled.
It was a dull, dreadful meal to all three who sat at table, and the millionaire's heart was the heaviest and the sorest.
If Ella suffered, she had the consolation, so dear to the nobler sort of women, that she was a sacrifice. If Windgall suffered, he had a solid compensation locked in the drawers of his library table. But Kimberley had no consolation, and knew only that he was expected somehow to be happy, and was, in spite of his prosperous wooing, more miserable than he had ever been before.