And as for Rose Mary, she stood framed against the fern-lined dusk at the back of the milk-house like a naiad startled as she emerged from her tree bower. Quickly she raised her hand to her breast and just as quickly the pressure of the letter laying there against her heart sent a flood over her face that had grown pale and still, but she raised her head proudly and looked the Senator straight in the face with a questioning, hurt surprise. "You didn't make the terms clear when you lent the money to us," she said quietly. "Well," he answered, beginning to take heart at her very tranquil acceptance of the first bombardment, "I thought it best to let a time elapse to soothe your deceived affections and cure your humiliation. For the time being I was content to enjoy culling the flowers of your friendship from time to time, but I now feel no longer satisfied with them, but must be paid in a richer harvest. We will take charge of this place, assure a comfortable future for the aged relatives in your care, and as my wife you will be both happy and honored." The Senator was decidedly coming into his own, and smile, glance and voice as he regarded Rose Mary were unctuous. In fact, through their slits his eyes shot a gleam of something that was so hateful to Rose Mary that she caught her breath with horror, and only the sharp corner of her letter pressed into her naked breast kept her from reeling. But in a second she had herself in hand and her quick mother-wit was aroused to find out the worst and begin a fight for the safeguarding of her nesties--and the nest. "And if I shouldn't want to--to do what you want me to?" she asked, and she was even able to summon a smile with a tinge of coquetry that served to draw the wily Senator further than he realized. "Oh, I feel sure you can have no objections to me that are strong enough to weigh against thus providing suitably for your old relatives," was the bait he dangled before her humiliated eyes. "It is the only way to do it, for Mr. Alloway is too old to care any longer for the place, which has been run at a loss for too long already. We may say that in accepting me you are accepting their comfortable future. Of course you could not expect things to go on any longer in this impossible way, as I have need of the home and family I am really entitled to, now could you?" The Senator bent forward and finished his sentence in his most beguiling tone as he poured the hateful glance all over her again so that her blood stopped in her veins from very fear and repulsion.