"You're mighty particular! Yes, it would, too! Jest you listen to me!
Now if so be we were to go and publish about Marian's fortune, we'd have
a whole herd of fortune hunters, who don't care a cent for anything but
fortune, running after and worrying the life out of her, and maybe one
of them marrying of her, and spending of her money, and bringing of her
to poverty, and breaking of her heart. Whereas, if we keep the secret of
the estate to ourselves, you, who desarve her, because you 'counted her
all the same when she was poor, and who'd take good care of her
property, and her, too--would have her all to yourself, and nobody to
interfere. Don't you see?"
"Well, to be sure--when one looks at the thing in this light,"
deliberated the sorely-tempted lover.
"Of course! And that's the only light to look at it in! Don't you see?
Why, by gracious! it seems to me as if we were doing Marian the greatest
favor."
CHAPTER XX.
AS A LAST RESORT.
In the meantime Marian's heart was weighed down by a new cause of sorrow
and anxiety. Thurston never approached her now, either in person or by
letter. She never saw him, except at the church, the lecture-room, or in
mixed companies, where he kept himself aloof from her and devoted
himself to the beautiful and accomplished heiress Angelica Le Roy, to
whom rumor gave him as an accepted suitor.
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