"There! There! that's enough, Walker," cried the elder man impatiently. "You know my terms. That cross and my consent: otherwise Lesbia marries Sargent." "She loves me: she will never obey you," cried the lover desperately. "I shall find means to compel her consent," said Hale coldly. "Surely, Mr. Walker, you have common sense at your age. Sargent has money and a certain position you have neither." "I can make a position." "Then go and do so. When you are rich and highly-placed we can talk." Hale was as hard as iron and as cold. There seemed to be no chance of getting what was wanted by appealing to his tender feelings, since he had none whatsoever. But after swift reflection Walker thought of something which might make the man change his mind. "Listen, Mr. Hale," he said, when Lesbia's father was on the point of moving away from a conversation which he found unprofitable and disagreeable. "I did not intend to tell you, but as my engagement with Lesbia is at stake I will make a clean breast of it." Hale wheeled round with a cold light in his eyes. "Are you going to confess that you stole the cross and got up a comedy to hide the theft?" George laughed. "I am not clever enough for that. But it is about a possible fortune that I wish to speak--one that may come to me through my mother." "A fortune." Hale flushed, for only the mention of money could touch his hard nature. "I never knew that your mother had money." "She has not now, but she may have." "Go on," said Hale, seeing that the young man hesitated, and watching him with glittering eyes. "I have known your mother for years, but she never told me either that she had money or expected any." "I should not tell you either," said Walker bluntly, "and so I hesitated. I have no business to interfere with my mother's affairs. However, I must speak since I want to marry Lesbia." "I am all attention." "My grandfather left his large fortune equally divided between his two daughters. One was my mother; and her husband, my father, ran through the lot, leaving her only a trifle to live on. I help to keep her." "This," said Hale coldly, "I already know." "But what you don't know is that my aunt--my mother's sister, that is, ran away with some unknown person during her father's lifetime. He was angry, but forgave her on his death-bed and left her a fair share of the money--that is half. As my mother inherited fifty thousand, there is an equal amount in the hands of Mr. Simon Jabez, a lawyer in Lincoln's Inn Fields, waiting for my aunt should she ever come back." "And if she does not?" asked Hale anxiously. "Then, if her death can be proved, the money comes to my mother." "Humph! But you say your aunt ran away with someone--to marry the man, I suppose. What if there is a child?" Walker's face fell. "The child inherits," he said softly.