By Walter Besant.
Act I.
OU dear old boy," said the girl, "I am sure I wish it could be—with all my heart—if I have any heart."
"I don't believe you have," replied the boy, gloomily.
"Well, but Reg, consider; you've got no money."
"I've got five thousand pounds. If a man can't make his way upon that, he must be a poor stick."
"You would go abroad with it and dig, and take your wife with you—to wash and cook."
"We would do something with the money here. You should stay in London, Rosie."
"Yes. In a suburban villa, at Shepherd's Bush, perhaps. No, Reg, when I marry, if ever I do—I am in no hurry—I will step out of this room into one exactly like it." The room was a splendid drawing-room in Palace Gardens, splendidly furnished. "I shall have my footmen and my carriage, and I shall———"
"Rosie, give me the right to earn all these things for you!" the young man cried impetuously.
"This heartless hand."
"You can only earn them for me by the time you have one foot in the grave. Hadn't I better in the meantime marry some old gentleman with his one foot in the grave, so as to be ready for you against the time when you come home? In two or three years the other foot I dare say would slide into the grave as well."
"You laugh at my trouble. You feel nothing."
"If the pater would part—but he won't—he says he wants all his money for himself, and that I've got to marry well. Besides, Reg"—here her face clouded and she lowered her voice—"there are times when he looks anxious. We didn't always live in Palace Gardens. Suppose we should lose it all as quickly
