Editha was the first to break the spell. “I have not told you Uncle Richard’s message yet,” she said, and an expression of anxiety for the moment chased the radiant look from her face. “True—it was like his kindness to remember me,” Earle returned, a shadow stealing over his fine face. “He thought a great deal of you, and had great hopes for your future——” “Which, if it amounts to anything, will be in a great measure owing to his goodness,” he interrupted, with emotion. “Yes, Uncle Richard was a true, good man; but, Earle, now I have something unpleasant to tell you. I—he left you a _token_ of his remembrance.” She hesitated, and he said, with a smile: “I’m sure there is nothing unpleasant about that.” “No; but wait,” she began, in some confusion and hardly knowing how to go on with her disagreeable task; “he left you a little money, ten thousand dollars, to give you a start in life, he said.” Earle Wayne startled and flushed deeply. “Did Mr. Forrester do that?” he asked, greatly moved. “Yes; and now comes the disagreeable part of it all. I do not like to tell you, but I must,” she said, lifting her crimson, troubled face to him, and he wondered what there was about it that should make her appear so. “Papa did not like it very well,” she went on, dropping her eyes with a feeling of shame. “He thought that it was not right the money should go to a stranger, and—and—oh! Earle, I know it seems selfish and cruel, but he says you cannot have it.” Editha nearly broke down here; it had required all her courage to tell him this; and now she sat still, covered with shame and confusion. A shade of bitterness passed over the young man’s face at her last words, and then the least smile of scorn curled his fine lips. He had never experienced very much respect for Sumner Dalton; he knew him to be a man devoid of principle, of small mind, and smaller soul; but he was Editha’s father, and he could speak no word against him. He saw how ashamed and uncomfortable she felt to be obliged to make this humiliating confession regarding her only parent, while he admired the fine sense of honor that would not allow her to shrink from her duty in telling him.