“Stephen.”

Mercy grasped eagerly at the intimation in this letter that Stephen might possibly give the money up because she desired it.

“Oh, if he will only not keep it, I don’t care on what grounds he gives it up!” she exclaimed.  “I can bear his thinking it was his, if only the money goes where it belongs.  He will see afterwards that I was right.”  And she sat down instantly, and wrote Stephen a long letter, imploring him to do as he had suggested.

“Darling,” she said, “this last letter of yours has given me great comfort.”  As Stephen read this sentence, he uttered an ejaculation of surprise.  What possible comfort there could have been in the words he remembered to have written he failed to see; but it was soon made clear to him.

“You say,” she continued, “that you might possibly give the money up for sake of my peace of mind, if it were not for the fear that your mother might suffer.  O Stephen, then give it up! give it up!  Trust to the future’s being at least as kind as the past.  I will not say another word about the right or wrong of the thing.  Think that my feeling is all morbid and overstrained about it, if you will.  I do not care what you think of me, so that I do not have to think of you as using money which is not your own.  And, darling, do not be anxious about the future:  if any thing happens to you, I will take care of your mother.  It is surely my right next to yours.  I only wish you would let me help you in it even now.  I am earning more and more money.  I have more than I need.  Oh, if you would only take some of it, darling!  Why should you not?  I would take it from you, if you had it and I had not.  I could give you in a very few years as much as this you have found and never miss it.  Do let me atone to you in this way for your giving up what you think is your right in the matter of this ill-fated money.  O Stephen, I could be almost happy again, if you would do this!  You say it would make no difference in my feeling about it, if you gave the money up only to please me, and not because you thought it wrong to keep it.  No, indeed! that is not so.  I would be happier, if you saw it as I do, of course; but, if you cannot, then the next best thing, the only thing left for my happiness, is to have you yield to my wish.  Why, Stephen, I have even felt so strongly about it as this:  that sometimes, in thinking it over, I have had a wild impulse to tell you that if you did not give the money to Mrs. Jacobs I would inform the authorities that you had it, and so test the question whether you had the right to keep it or not.  Any thing, even your humiliation, has at times seemed to me better than that you should go on living in the possession of stolen money.  You can see from this how deeply I felt about the thing.  I suppose I really never could have done this.  At the last moment, I should have found it impossible to array myself against you in any such public way;