He looked at her steadily, half expecting her to speak, and there was both pain and sorrow in the depths of his tired eyes.
"I need not prolong this conversation," he said, after a minute's silence.

"For it must be as embarrassing to you as it is to me.

It is quite my own fault that I built too many hopes upon you, Lucy! I set you up on a pedestal and you have yourself stepped down from it--I have put you to the test, and you have failed.

I daresay the failure is as much the concern of your parents and the way in which they have brought you up, as it is of any latent weakness in your own mind and character.
But,--if, when I suggested such an absurd and unnatural proposition as marriage between myself arid you, you had at once, like a true woman, gently and firmly repudiated the idea, then----" "Then--what ?" she faltered.
"Why, then I should have made you my sole heiress," he said quietly.
Her eyes opened in blank wonderment and despair.

Was it possible! Had she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the shining shores receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible! There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn into the laugh hysterical.
"Really!" she ejaculated, with a poor attempt at flippancy; and, in her turn, she asked the question, "Why ?" "Because I should have known you were honest," answered Helmsley, with emphasis.