"Don't say that!" she cried out sharply. "Love is everything. It conquers everything. It is both good and evil. It makes happiness and it makes misery. Braden,—oh, my dearest!—see what it has made for us? Love! Why, don't you know it is Love that we love? _We love Love._ I would not love you if you were not Love itself. I treated you abominably, but you still love me. You performed an act of mercy for the man you loved, and he loved you. You cursed me in your heart, and I still love you. We cannot escape love, my friend. It rules us,—it rules all of us. The thing that you say stands between us—that act of mercy, dearest,—what effect has it had upon either of us? I would come to you to-morrow, to-day,—this very hour if you asked me to do so, and not in all the years that are left to me would I see the shadow you shrink from." "The shadow extends back a great deal farther, Anne," he said, closing his eyes as if in pain. "It began long before my grandfather found the peace which I have yet to find. It began when you sold yourself to him." She shrank slightly. "But even that did not kill your love for me," she cried out, defensively. "I did not sell my love,—just my soul, if you must have a charge against me. I've got it back, thank God, and it is worth a good deal more to me to-day than it was when Mr. Thorpe bargained for it. Two million dollars!" She spoke ironically, yet with great seriousness. "If he could have bought my love for that amount, his bargain would have been a good one. If I were to discover now that you do not care for me, Braden, and if I could buy your love, which is the most precious thing in the world to me, I would not hesitate a second to pay out every dollar I have in—" "Stop!" he cried eagerly, drawing a step nearer and fixing her with a look that puzzled and yet thrilled her. "Would you give up everything—everything, mind you,—if I were to ask you to do so?" "You said something like that a few months ago," she said, after a moment's hesitation. There was a troubled, hunted look in her eyes, as of a creature at bay. "You make it hard for me, Braden. I don't believe I could give up everything. I have found that all this money does not give me happiness. It does provide me with comfort, with independence, with a certain amount of power. It does not bring me the thing I want more than anything else in the world, however. Still I cannot say to you now that I would willingly give it up, Braden. You would not ask it of me, of course. You are too fair and big—" "But it is exactly what I would ask of you, Anne," he said earnestly, "if it came to an issue. You could not be anything more to me than you are now if you retained a dollar of that money."