“Good gracious, no! But, she says she’s going to see a clairvoyant about Kimball, and she’ll find out the truth that way.”
“Poppycock! Of course she could learn nothing, but if she could, she would have done so long ago. It’s nearly three weeks now since that he’s been gone, and nobody has done one thing toward finding him. That proves the Webbs did it. If he had been kidnapped or killed, the police would have found it out. But the Webbs can keep him hidden indefinitely; and they’re going to do it, until after your birthday.”
“If they’ll give him back to me then,—I’ll be glad!”
“Elsie, don’t talk like that. And, dear, I wish you would look at the matter sensibly. You can’t mean to give up five million dollars—for a mere bit of sentiment—”
“Don’t call my love for Kimball a mere bit of sentiment! You don’t know what love means—”
“Don’t say that! I guess if your husband had been killed in the war, you’d—”
“Killed in the war! That’s a glorious fate! Philip died honourably, fighting for his country, and you can be proud of him! While I am not only deprived of my love, my mate, but I’ve no notion where he is, or what suffering he’s undergoing! Oh, Gerty, your sorrow is a great one, I know, but it’s nothing to mine!”
“You talk like a silly girl! You can’t feel the same about a lover as I do about a husband and the father of my children! And you can marry some one else,—you can look on Kimball merely as a dear memory—”
“No; my heart is buried in my husband’s grave. Elsie, dear sister, try to look at these things from a rational point of view. Try to realize that sad as your lot seems at present, there’s happiness ahead, if you choose to accept it. No young girl can so love a man to whom she’s not married as to be inconsolable at his loss.”
“I can,” Elsie persisted, “and I do. And you can talk as long as you like, you’ll never persuade me that I could know a happy moment if I married any one else!”
“Then, dear, don’t you think you ought to sacrifice yourself for mother’s sake? She is so ill,—”
“One word for mother and two for yourself! You don’t fool me, Gerty, not for a minute! You want me to marry because if I don’t we’ll lose Aunt Elizabeth’s money! Why not speak out and say so!”