Long after Adam’s cheery whistle had died away, Bellew sat, pipe in mouth, staring up at the moon.  At length, however, he rose, and turned his steps towards the house.

“Mr. Bellew!”

He started, and turning, saw Anthea standing amid her roses.  For a moment they looked upon each other in silence, as though each dreaded to speak, then suddenly, she turned, and broke a great rose from its stem, and stood twisting it between her fingers.

“Why did you—­do it?” she asked.

“Do it?” he repeated.

“I mean the—­fortune.  Georgy told me—­how you—­helped him to find it, and I—­know how it came there, of course.  Why did you—­do it?”

“You didn’t tell him—­how it came there?” asked Bellew anxiously.

“No,” she answered, “I think it would break his heart—­if he knew.”

“And I think it would have broken his heart if he had never found it,” said Bellew, “and I couldn’t let that happen, could I?” Anthea did not answer, and he saw that her eyes were very bright in the shadow of her lashes though she kept them lowered to the rose in her fingers.

“Anthea!” said he, suddenly, and reached out his hand to her.  But she started and drew from his touch.

“Don’t!” she said, speaking almost in a whisper, “don’t touch me.  Oh!  I know you have paid off the mortgage—­you have bought back my home for me as you bought back my furniture!  Why?—­why?  I was nothing to you, or you to me,—­why have you laid me under this obligation,—­you know I can never hope to return your money—­oh! why,—­why did you do it?”

“Because I—­love you, Anthea, have loved you from the first.  Because everything I possess in this world is yours—­even as I am.”

“You forget!” she broke in proudly, “you forget—­”

“Everything but my love for you, Anthea,—­everything but that I want you for my wife.  I’m not much of a fellow, I know, but—­could you learn to—­love me enough to—­marry me—­some day, Anthea?”

“Would you have—­dared to say this to me—­before to-night?—­before your money had bought back the roof over my head?  Oh! haven’t I been humiliated enough?  You—­you have taken from me the only thing I had left—­my independence,—­stolen it from me!  Oh! hadn’t I been shamed enough?”

Now, as she spoke, she saw that his eyes were grown suddenly big and fierce, and, in that moment, her hands were caught in his powerful clasp.

“Let me go!” she cried.

“No,” said he, shaking his head, “not until you tell me if you—­love me.  Speak, Anthea.”

“Loose my hands!” She threw up her head proudly, and her eyes gleamed, and her cheeks flamed with sudden anger.  “Loose me!” she repeated.  But Bellew only shook his head, and his chin seemed rather more prominent than usual, as he answered: 

“Tell me that you love me, or that you hate me—­whichever it is, but, until you do—­”