"With all my soul and body," he answered, fervidly. "Life, work, success, power, nothing under high heaven can knock it out of me. She has got to be mine, and you must never interfere, either. I love you as a son loves his mother, and you must not take her from me. You must do more—you must help me. I’ve never asked many things of you. I ask only this one—give her to me, help me to win her. That’s all. Now we understand each other. She’s the whole world to me. She’s young; she may be thoughtless; her final character is just forming; but she is destined to be the grandest, loveliest woman on the face of the earth. She is to be my wife, Aunt Ann—_my wife_!" Ann’s head sank till her massive brow touched her crossed arms; he could see that she was quivering from head to foot. There was a long pause, then the woman looked up, faint defiance struggling in her face. "You _are_ a fool," she said. "A great, big, whimpering fool of a man. She’s the only one, eh? Jane Hemingway’s daughter is an angel on earth, above all the rest. Huh! and just because of her pretty face and slim body and high head. Huh, oh, you _are_ a fool—an idiot, if there ever was one!" "Stop, talk sense, if you _will_ talk," he said, sternly, his eyes flashing. "Don’t begin to run her down. I won’t stand it. I know what she is. I know she was made for me!" "She’s not a whit better than the average," Ann retorted, her fierce eyes fixed on his face. "She’s as weak as any of the rest. Do you know—do you know—" Ann looked away from him. "Do you know Langdon Chester has his eye on her, that he is following her everywhere, meeting her unbeknownst to her old mammy?" "Yes, I know that, too," King surprised her with the statement; "and between you and me, that as much as my mother’s sickness made me lay down my work and come up here to-night. It is the crisis of my whole life. She is at the turning-point of hers, just as you were at yours when you were a young and happy girl. She might listen to him, and love him; it is as natural for her to believe in a well-acted lie, as it is for her to be good and pure. Listen and don’t get mad—the grandest woman I ever knew once trusted in falseness, and suffered. Virginia might, too; she might enter the life-darkness that you were led into by sheer faith in mankind, and have a life of sorrow before her. But if it should happen, Aunt Ann, my career in the right way would end." "You wouldn’t let a—a thing like that—" Ann began, anxiously, "a thing like that ruin your whole life, when—" "Wouldn’t I? You don’t know me. These two hands would be dyed to the bone with the slow death-blood of a certain human being, and I would go to the gallows with both a smile and a curse. That’s why it’s my crisis. I don’t know how far it has gone. I only know that I want to save her from—yes, from what you’ve been through, and lay my life and energy at her feet." "Jane Hemingway’s _daughter_!" Ann Boyd groaned.