The girl was powerfully tempted to surrender her determination and submit her weaker will to his stronger one. Her inclination, her heart was on his side; but what she thought was duty, and her sense of right, held her frail bark to its moorings. She therefore drew herself away, and with a little gesture waved him back, and then, to make her position more secure, she feigned anger. "Don’t! Don’t!" she exclaimed sharply. "You go too fast, Mr. Cameron, much too fast! What we might have been to each other in happier times, events have rendered impossible now. You know they have----" "No, no, not impossible!" he cried. "I say impossible," insisted Doris. "My father appropriated your fortune. He stole from you your birthright." "What of that? I forget it. I have forgotten it." "You think so now. In your magnanimity you choose to think so; but supposing I were to trust to that, and we were to marry, do you think you could live with me day by day, in poverty, remember--for we should be very poor--without remembering that my father--mine--stole from you all the money your father left you?" "I shouldn’t think of it, or, if I did, I would say to myself that you have, by giving me your hand"--he took hers in his as he spoke--"and promising to be my wife," he added, "righted the wrong, paid the debt, made me rich indeed with what is worth far more than money, yes, infinitely more." Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed it. "Don’t!" She drew her hand away. "And there is another side to the question," she continued. "Could I be happy seeing you poor, and knowing what was the cause of it? Don’t you think that daily, hourly, I should realise with pain that my father’s crime was blighting your life?" "Nonsense! Mine would be a poor life indeed, if the loss of money--mere money--could blight it!" "It has a very stupefying effect on one to have no money," said Doris, with a little sigh, thinking of her past experience. "Don’t you know the song-- Dollars and dimes! Dollars and dimes! To be without cash is the worst of crimes! It gets one into disgrace, anyway," she added. "Poor child! I am afraid you have been hard up since----" "Well," she interrupted, "it takes the courage out of one to have no money. You know that verse-- Whereunto is money good? Who has it not wants hardihood; Who has it has much trouble and care, Who does not have it has despair." "_I_ shall have despair if I have not you!" he declared, moodily. "No, you will not. You will find some one else to love--some one who has heaps and heaps of money. Then you will marry--will marry her." Doris’s voice shook a little, but she waved him back when he would have drawn her to him again. "You will marry a girl with lots of money," she continued, more firmly now. "That is what your mother wants you to do. It is your one chance, she says, of retrieving your fortune."