The mother, late that evening, was still alone on the balcony when, from behind her, Anne’s shadow fell across the moonlight. The girl dropped into a seat. No, she wasn’t tired--wasn’t hungry--they had supped, on the way back, at a glorious place high up over Rio. Yes, the day had been wonderful; the beauty incredible; and the moonlit descent through the forest.... Anne lapsed into silence, her profile turned from her mother. Perhaps--who could tell? Her silence seemed heavy with promise. Suddenly she put out a hand to Kate. “Mother, I want to make over all my money to you. It would have been yours if things had been different. It _is_ yours, really; and I don’t want it--I hate it!” Her hand was trembling. Mrs. Clephane trembled too. “But, Anne--how absurd! What can it matter? What difference can it make?” “All the difference.” The girl lowered her voice. “It’s because I was too rich that he wouldn’t marry me.” It broke from her in a sob. “I can’t bear it--I can’t bear it!” She stretched her hand to the silver splendours beneath them. “All this beauty and glory in the world--and nothing in me but cold and darkness!” Kate Clephane sat speechless. She remembered just such flashes of wild revolt in her own youth, when sea and earth and sky seemed joined in a vast conspiracy of beauty, and within her too all was darkness. For months she had been praying for this hour of recovered communion with her daughter; yet now that it had come, now that the barriers were down, she felt powerless to face what was beyond. If it had been any other man! Paralysed by the fact that it was just that one, she continued to sit silent, her hand on Anne’s sunken head. “Why should you think it’s the money?” she whispered at last, to gain time. “I know it--I know it! He told Nollie once that nothing would induce him to marry a girl with a fortune. He thought it an impossible position for a poor man.” “Did he tell _you_ so?” “Not in so many words. But it was easy to guess. When he wrote to ... to give me back my freedom, he said he’d been mad to think we might marry ... that it was impossible ... there would always be an obstacle between us....” The girl lifted her head, her agonized eyes on her mother’s. “What obstacle could there be but my money?” Kate Clephane had turned as cold as marble. At the word “obstacle” she stood up, almost pushing the girl from her. In that searching moonlight, what might not Anne read in her eyes? “Come indoors, dear,” she said. Anne followed her mechanically. In the high-ceilinged shadowy room Mrs. Clephane sat down in a wooden rocking-chair and the girl stood before her, tall and ghostly in her white linen riding-habit, the dark hair damp on her forehead. “Come and sit by me, Anne.” “No. I want you to answer me first--to promise.” “But, my dear, what you suggest is madness. How can I promise such a thing? And why should it make any difference? Why should any man be humiliated by the fact of marrying a girl with money?”