Jane's head and very throat were scarlet: "Yes. But we will not talk at all of that matter, Mr. Van Ness," stammering with haste. "It is impossible, unnatural. You are more experienced than I: you must see that it is impossible more clearly than I do." "In hoping," he resumed, after calmly dropping his light eyelashes while she spoke, politely attentive, "in anxiously striving, I may say, to gain you as my wife, I did not intend to give up the cause of the orphan and the fatherless." "Oh you ought not to give it up! It would be really criminal! After you have gone so far! And I should be no help to you at all," she added breathlessly. "But," with his light confusing gaze full on her, "you know, to speak plain English, that your father on his deathbed desires that you shall marry me?" The blood came and rushed back from Jane's face, leaving it colorless. "Why will you not grant this last wish?" Why? There was no reason why she should not. She was dear to nobody else in the world than this old man--she was of use to nobody else. To nobody. She looked for some time directly into the shallow eyes facing her with aggressive complaisance. "I cannot do it," she said at last. She seemed to have grown stolid from head to foot. "Why? What is this bar between us?" coming a step closer. "How can I tell?" with a nervous shudder. "If I lived with you as your wife for years, you would be none the less a stranger to me." "Miss Swendon," suddenly, and with the indulgent smile which he would have given to a child, "I will not accept such an answer. Take time. Consider the matter calmly. You speak rashly now. You have not a single reason to give for your decision." "No," said Jane quietly. "But I shall not alter it." "This woman," thought Van Ness, "is _all_ mule." But he went on blandly: "In any other case the fact that you were possessed of large means and that I am almost penniless would have deterred me from approaching you in this way--" "The money counts for nothing with me," quickly. "I know that. I know that if you were my wife your generous nature would rejoice in giving it to me in furtherance of my great work. In fact--" He stopped, measured her again with the same hesitating inspection, and then, while Jane listened intently, proceeded: "To be quite candid, Miss Swendon, but for a sudden and most unexpected change in Mr. Laidley's disposition on the last day of his life, my Home for Friendless Children would have been made a certainty without your aid." "What do you mean?"