“Father!” and Godfrey’s voice rang with surprise and scorn. “You knew me. I am your son, and you knew that sooner than dishonor any woman I would part with my life; much less then would I harm a hair of the head of one who has been to me the sweetest thing I ever knew since I first saw her years ago in England. You had nothing to fear for her. There was some other reason. Will you tell me what it was, honestly?—the Schuylers are men of honor, you know!” To this appeal the colonel answered a little hotly: “Yes, Godfrey, I will tell you the truth. I feared an entanglement which might interfere with the wish of my life. I knew how beautiful, and sweet, and pure Gertie was just as well as you. But she is not a fitting wife for you. She has neither money, name, nor friends.” “How do you know that? Mary Rogers always said she was a lady born,” Godfrey exclaimed impetuously, and his father replied: “When Mary died and the child came here to live, I took pains to inquire into her antecedents, and wrote to the firm where her annuity is invested. But they could tell me nothing; the business had been done by Mrs. Rogers as guardian of the child, and I came to regard the big house and the high-born mother as a myth. No, Gertie has no friends, no money, no name, and I would not see you throw yourself away as you might have done had the correspondence been permitted to go on. Believe me, Godfrey, I acted for the best. It was your mother’s dying wish that you should marry Alice, and for her sake, if for no other, you will not break your word.” “I have no intention of breaking my word. I am engaged to Alice, and shall marry her in time, but if it were to do again, I should think twice before I made a promise I find so hard to keep; for, father, we will have no more concealments. I love Gertie Westbrooke so much that I would rather live with her on a crust a day than share with another all the splendors of the world. It is no sudden passion either. She has been in my heart constantly, though absence and silence had dimmed the picture a little, and I thought of her always as a child. But when I saw her yesterday in the full bloom of womanhood, and compared her with Alice and my sisters and all the girls I ever saw, I knew that for me there was no other woman living, no other love which could ever touch my heart and make it throb just as it does now at the mere mention of her. I love her better than my life, and love her all the more for knowing she is not for me. I have promised to marry Alice and shall keep my word, unless she releases me of her own free will. But I will not be hurried into matrimony. I will have my profession first and keep my freedom a little longer. You need not bargain for that house; I shall not need it. I presume our conference is ended, and if you will excuse me I’ll go where I can breathe; the atmosphere of this room is stifling.”