“And now that I am penniless,” interrupted Harry, “perhaps you deem it best that the engagement be broken off.”
“I regret to say it is the conclusion we have come to.”
Harry, who had feared this would be the step which Mrs. Gibbon would urge Kitty to take, nevertheless wished to see the young lady in person, and so he said: “But may I not speak with Miss Gibbon a moment? I—I—”
“She has a bad headache and is confined to her room,” interrupted the widow. “Besides, sir, I am fully authorized to speak for my daughter, who, you are aware, is not yet of age.”
“Oh! but do tell her I am here; let me speak only a word to her,” said Harry in a pleading tone.
“I am sorry that I cannot grant your request,” answered Mrs. Gibbon firmly.
With this the interview closed, and Harry departed in a sorrowful mood indeed.
For a while the blow quite stunned him. The tears did not flow; he could only sigh and groan. He wished he had been born poor, and that Kitty had not been an heiress. “For then poverty would not have separated us; we should have toiled for our daily bread, and been as happy as if we had lived on Fifth Avenue.”
The following week he read in a newspaper the names of Mrs. Gibbon and her daughter among the passengers by the steamship Russia for Liverpool.
“Well, Harry, let us not despair,” said Mr. Fletcher a month after the panic. “Happy days may yet be in store for us.”