her simple appeal for him to allow her to see his heart, to see that there
was nothing black there.

As she gazed, her beautiful hands played through his hair as do a mother's
through that of the child she is soothing in sickness.

"Bob, speak to me, speak to me," she begged, "tell me there was no
dishonour in the getting of those millions. Tell me no one was made to
suffer as my father and I have suffered. Tell me that the suicides and the
convicts, the daughters dragged to shame and the mothers driven to the
madhouse as a result of this panic, cannot be charged to anything unfair
or dishonourable that you have done. Bob, oh, Bob, answer! Answer no, or
my heart will break; or if, Bob, you have made a mistake, if you have done
that which in your great desire to aid me and my father seemed
justifiable, but which you now see was wrong, tell it to me, Bob dear, and
together we will try to undo it. We will try to find a way to atone. We
will give the millions to the last, last penny to those upon whom you have
brought misery. Father's loss will not matter. Together we will go to him
and tell him what we have done, what we have lived through, tell him of
our mistake, and in our agony he will forget his own. For such a horror
has my father of anything dishonourable that he will embrace his misery as
happiness when he knows that his teachings have enabled his daughter to
undo this great wrong. And then, Bob, we will be married, and you and I
and father and mother will be together, and be, oh, so happy, and we will
begin all over again."

"Beulah, stop; in the name of God, in the name of your love for me, don't
say another word. There is a limit to the capacity of a man to suffer,
even if he be a great, strong brute like myself, and, Beulah, I have
reached that limit. The day has been a hard one."