She paused and Stuart's lips parted in amazement. Never had he heard such eloquence from the woman before him. Words leaped from her heart, quivering with emotion, her whole being stirred to its depths.

"Jim," she went on falteringly, "I'm lonely and heartsick. I'm trying to tell you that I want your love; that I can't live any longer without it."

Her head sank, low and a sob caught her voice.

"There I've told you--I've no pride left. Tell me that you love me. I want to hear it a thousand times. I want it, right or wrong!"

She paused a moment and looked through a tear into his pale, serious face.

"I know that you love me," she went on. "It's only your stubborn pride that keeps you silent now. My God! Speak! Say something, if only to curse me!"

"You should have thought of this, Nan, before these gray hairs began to creep into my hair."

"I did, Jim!" she cried, eagerly bending, near. "God knows I fought!

You never knew it, but I did. For whole nights I wrestled with the fiend that tempted me and fought for my love. It took days and weeks to strangle its hold on my heart and force me to betray myself. If I had seen you on the day of my marriage I would have leaped from the carriage, rushed to your side, and fainted in your arms. With the despair of a lost soul I searched the faces of the staring crowd, hoping against hope that I might see you. Oh, Jim, it's not too late to live! Look at me, dearest, and say it's not. For God's sake tell me that you love me still! Am I old? Am I faded?"

The man had felt sure of himself when she began, but the tenderness, the passion, the yearning appeal of her voice were more than he could resist. A wave of desperate longing convulsed his being. He seized her hand with cruel force.

"Look into my eyes, Nan!" he cried, "and let me see the bottom of your soul!"

She lifted her dark lustrous eyes, devouring him with love.

"You'll find only your image there, Jim."

He looked at her sternly.

"Before I take you into my arms and smother you with kisses," he whispered fiercely, "there mustn't be any mistake this time. I've got to know that your love for me is the biggest thing in your life--the only thing in your life!"

"I swear it!" she gasped.

"You've got to prove it; I'm going to put you to the test."

"Any test!" she broke in quickly.

"I warn you," he went on, with increasing seriousness, "the test will be a real one. You and I, Nan, could never be happy with the shadow of Bivens's fortune over us."

"But, its shadow can't be over us! It's going to be yours. He has given it to me--his death is only a question of a year or two--and I'm going to give it all to you."

The strong jaws closed with sudden energy.

"There's not a dollar of his millions that isn't smirched. I'd sooner wear the rags of a leper than soil my hands with it."

"Then I'll have to hold it in trust for you," she laughed.

"There's where the test comes--you can't do it. If you love me you will have to give up these millions."

"Jim, you're not serious?"

"Never more serious in my life."

Nan gazed at him in astonishment and broke into a low laugh.

"Of course, you're teasing me. You can't be in earnest in such an absurd dime-novel idea! Give away this enormous fortune, this power equal to the sway of kings which you can wield with a strength and dignity the man who made it never knew? You can't be in earnest?"

"I am," was the firm answer.

The woman placed her hand tenderly in his and nestled close to his side.

"Come, Jim, dear, this is a practical world, you have some common sense even if you are a man of genius; you're not insane!"

"I think not," he answered, soberly.

"You can not make this absurd demand on me," she repeated slowly, "knowing the awful price I paid for these millions?"

"It's because I know it that I make the demand," he went on, passionately. "We are face to face now, you and I, with all the little subterfuges and lies of life torn from our eyes. The fact that the price at which he bought you was high--say a hundred millions--does not change the fact. I refuse to share with the woman I love the price for which she sold herself, whether the sum be a hundred dollars or a hundred millions! I can forgive and have forgiven the wrong you've done me, but I could never share its conscious degradation."

A flush of anger overspread Nan's face.

"Jim, this is stupid pride, the stupidest of all pride, the vainest and the meanest, the pride of the poor man. It's detestable. I thought you were greater. There's some excuse for the pride of wealth, but there's none for the pride of poverty!"

"It's a question of character," was the firm answer. "It cuts to the deepest issues of life between us. There can be no compromise."

Nan looked at him in despair, her eyes suddenly clouding with tears.

[Illustration: "Nan looked at him in despair"]

"What do you mean when you say give up these millions?"

"Just what I say," he answered quickly.

"But I couldn't throw them into the street, what would I do with them?"

"You can give them back to the people, the public, from whom they were taken; the people whose labour created their value. That's what an honest man does when he finds he has wronged his neighbour. The things we possess come at last to possess us. In a very deep and real sense they give to us their character. An ermine robe that covers a leper does not make him a king, but the royal robe at last breathes leprosy.

You can't separate money from the process of its making. It has no value in itself. It is only a symbol, and always takes a soul from the hand of its creator. There's not a stone in your palaces whose cement was not mixed in human tears. The stain of blood is in every scarlet thread of your carpets, rugs, and curtains. Your magnificent paintings, your gorgeous furniture, your beds of ebony and carved ivory--do you think these things possess no soul? Do you think they could not laugh at me?"

"Surely, you are not such a weakling!" Nan cried, with a flush of contempt.

"If to hold honour dearer than life is the creed of a weakling, I am one."

"But you are talking like a mad anarchist. His money was made as all great fortunes are made."

"So much the worse for our financiers. Civilization must rest at least on justice or it can't endure."

"But, Jim, no matter what your theories of life or your ambitions, these millions will make them more powerful."

"It's not true. Not a single great man whose words have moulded the world was rich. The combined fortunes of Darwin, Mozart, Shakespeare, Raphael, Aristotle, Socrates, Mohammed, and Buddha weren't equal to the possessions of even the smallest and most insignificant member of our mob of six thousand millionaires--six thousand nobodies! Don't think, dear, that you haven't tempted me in the past. You have. The glitter of your millions once blinded me and I was on the point of surrender, but I've won out. I've entered at last--to stay--into the Kingdom of Mind, that lies beyond the rule of greed, where beauty, heroism, and genius have built their altar-fires and keep them burning. You'll have to come with me, Nan, into this enchanted land. Your estate is large only if you don't lift up your head and look farther. You own a hundred thousand acres in the mountains, and yet, after all, it's but a tiny speck on the horizon of one little corner of a state. Beyond is the great world with its beautiful rivers, its valleys, its shining shores and emerald seas. This big world is mine--the Alps and the Mountains of the Moon and your little blue hills also are on my estate. I've come to know at last that the man is richest who breathes deepest, sees farthest, hears best, and has the widest and most helpful influence on his fellow-man. Lord Beaconsfield died with a paltry estate of two hundred thousand dollars. He had the chance, while prime minister, to take for himself a personal fortune whose annual income would have been $25,000,000. Instead he gave it all to the people of England and died poor. I'd rather do such a deed for my country than hold the combined fortunes of all our six thousand little millionaires.

"You think, dear, that you are in Society. But the real aristocracy has always been one of brains and ethics. The people in your little world live for money. They do not possess it, they are possessed by it. They are slaves. You will have to come with me, into the great free world--if you love me."