A smile crossed her face.
"Somebody poor," she answered.
"Poor! Why in heaven's name should you marry somebody that's poor?"
"Peter, I told you I loved him," she repeated, still smiling.
Wilkinson was conscious of a curious, indefinable sensation; an emotion that heretofore had been foreign to his nature.
"And—and," he stammered, battling with this new sensation, "he loves you, I suppose?"
"I know he does," she answered.
The millionaire puffed silently.
"He must love you," he went on at length, in brutal tones, "to—to forgive all this." And stretching his arms wide into a circle that included her and himself, he added: "He's willing to forget the past?"
The girl did not answer. But on her face was a death-like pallor.