Then he looked away to the huge mill upon the river, the shoe-shop farther on, and thought of the immense revenue they yielded, and then his eye came back to Millbank proper,—the handsome house, embowered in trees, with its velvety lawn and spacious grounds, and its ease and luxury within. “All his,” unless he chose to throw it away for a girl, who did not love him, and who, he believed, preferred Roger and poverty and toil, to luxury and Millbank and himself. Had he believed otherwise, had no suspicion of her preference for Roger entered his mind, he might have hesitated a moment ere deciding to give up the princely fortune which had come so suddenly to him. But the fact that she was hard to win only enhanced her value, and he resolutely shut his eyes to the sacrifice he was making for her sake, and thought instead how he would work for her, deny himself for her, and become all that her husband ought to be. “She _shall_ love me better than she loves Roger. She shall never regret her choice if she decides for me,” he said, as he went back to the house, which he reached just as dinner was announced. Mrs. Walter Scott had not seen him when he first came home in the afternoon, but she saw him leave the house and hurry down the avenue, while something in his manner indicated an unusual degree of perturbation and excitement A few moments later she found Magdalen in her own room, lying upon the sofa, her face as white as marble, and her eyes wearing so scared a look that she was greatly alarmed, and asked what was the matter. “A headache; it came on suddenly,” Magdalen said, while her lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears, which ran down her cheeks in torrents, as Mrs. Irving bent to kiss her, smoothing her forehead and saying to her, “Poor child, you look as if you were suffering so much. I wish I could help you. Can I?” “No, nobody can help me,—nobody. Oh, is it a sin to wish I had never been born?” was Magdalen’s reply, which confirmed Mrs. Walter Scott in her suspicion that Frank had something to do with her distress. Frank had spoken again and been refused, and they might lose the hundred thousand after all. Mrs. Walter Scott could not afford to lose it. She had formed too many plans which were all depending upon it to see it pass from her without an effort to keep it, and bringing a little stool to Magdalen’s side, she sat down by her and began to caress, and pity, and soothe her, and at last said to her, “Excuse me, darling, but I am almost certain that Frank has had more or less to do with your headache. I know he has been here; did you see him?” Magdalen made no reply, only her tears fell faster, and she turned her face away from the lady, who continued, in her softest, kindest manner, “My poor boy, I know all about it; can’t you love him? Try, darling, for my sake as well as his. We could be so happy together. Tell me what you said to him.”