“’You would require twenty or thirty thousand dollars.  No one would lend you such a sum upon the uncertain chances of a very complicated lawsuit.  If you are in difficulties; if you need assistance—­’

“‘It is not that, father.  That is not what Miss Percival asks.’

“‘I know that very well, but what she asks is impossible.’

“He rose to let me out.  Then the sense of my helplessness overpowered me for the first time since my father’s death.  I burst into a violent flood of tears.  An hour later Richard Scott was with me.

“‘Susie,’ he said, ‘promise to accept what I am going to offer.’

“I promised him.

“‘Well,’ said he, ’on the single condition that my father shall know nothing about it, I place at your disposal the necessary sum.’

“‘But then you ought to know what the lawsuit is—­what it is worth.’

“’I do not know a single word about it, and I do not wish to.  Besides, you have promised to accept it; you can not withdraw now.’

“I accepted.  Three months after the case was ours.  All this vast property became beyond dispute the property of Bettina and me.  The other side offered to buy it of us for five million dollars.  I consulted Richard.

“‘Refuse it and wait,’ said he; ’if they offer you such a sum it is because the property is worth double.’

“‘However, I must return you your money; I owe you a great deal.’

“’Oh! as for that there is no hurry; I am very easy about it; my money is quite safe now.’

“’But I should like to pay you at once.  I have a horror of debt!  Perhaps there is another way without selling the property.  Richard, will you be my husband?’

“Yes, Monsieur le Cure, yes,” said Mrs. Scott, laughing, “it is thus that I threw myself at my husband’s head.  It is I who asked his hand.  But really I was obliged to act thus.  Never, never, would he have spoken; I had become too rich, and as it was me he loved, and not my money, he was becoming terribly afraid of me.  That is the history of my marriage.  As to the history of my fortune, it can be told in a few words.  There were indeed millions in those wide lands of Colorado; they discovered there abundant mines of silver, and from those mines we draw every year an income which is beyond reason, but we have agreed—­my husband, my sister, and myself—­to give a very large share of this income to the poor.  You see, Monsieur le Cure, it is because we have known very hard times that you will always find us ready to help those who are, as we have been ourselves, involved in the difficulties and sorrows of life.  And now, Monsieur Jean, will you forgive me this long discourse, and offer me a little of that cream, which looks so very good?”

This cream was Pauline’s custard, and while Jean was serving Mrs. Scott: