"So I thought!" said Margaret Hayley. "That eighty thousand dollars, then, has been standing for fifteen years, and the interest upon it would nearly double the sum. We owe that railroad company, or so many members of the original company as may be yet alive, not less than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. We have only an hundred thousand or a very little more, but that will be something. Of course, after what you have just said of the curse that clings to ill-gotten gain, you will join me in paying over every dollar in our possession, at once." Mrs. Burton Hayley sprang up from her chair with more celerity than she had before exhibited. "Margaret Hayley, are you a born fool?" she almost screamed. "No, nor a born _hypocrite_!" the young girl replied. Again her eyes went round to the Bible, and those of the mother followed hers as if they were compelled by a charm. Then those of the latter drooped, and they did not rise again as she said, in a much lower voice: "You know the secret. I am in your power. But I am your mother, and it may be quite as well for you to be merciful to me as well as to yourself. Upon what terms will you give me that paper and promise never to speak of it or of the affair to any one without my consent?" "I will not give you the paper upon _any_ terms!" was the answer. "That has been my shame and my torture for five years, and must still accompany me. But I will be your accomplice in crime and make the promise you require, on three conditions and those only. _First_, that you drop all hypocrisy when speaking to _me_, whatever you may do before the world. _Second_, that you never speak one disrespectful word of Carlton Brand, again, in my hearing. He is dead to me: let your hatred of him die with him, or at least let me hear no word of it. _Third_, that you urge no person upon me as a husband. Present me whom you please--throw me into any company you wish; but say not one word to force me into marriage with Hector Coles or any other person. This will not break my heart--I know it. I shall marry some time, no doubt, when I find the man who can supply that place in my heart which has to-day been left empty,--without any foible or weakness to make him an unfit match for my own _stainless_ blood!" There was a bitter emphasis upon the penultimate word, and Mrs. Burton Hayley distinctly recognized it. She recognized, too, the somewhat singular prophecy made by a young girl on the very day of her final parting with the man she had loved so dearly--that _she would yet find another to fill her heart more completely_. Most young persons think very differently at the moment of the great first sorrow, believe that the vacant niche can never be filled, and make painful promises of hopeless lives and celibacy, to cancel those promises some day amid blushes of regret or peals of laughter. Mrs. Burton Hayley recognized the singularity then, and she may have had reason to recall that prophecy at another day in the near future.