“I was so happy, and now the cruelty of fate.”
“Calm yourself and tell me all. We shall never part, come what may.”
“We are ruined,” she sobbed. “My father, my poor father risked everything in Chicago and he has lost. Home, money, everything must go and yet there will remain a debt of honor for twenty thousand dollars. This money was entrusted to him by a widow, it was her all. The shock was more than he could bear, he has had a paralytic stroke and the doctors say he will never recover. He may live for years but will be helpless. Mother, as you know, is an invalid, and, she paused and wiped away her tears. How can I tell you? but I must, only yesterday Fred Reingold asked me to be his wife. He knows all and yet he declares that if I will consent, the old home shall be saved and the debt of honor paid. What am I to do? In one year we shall be turned into the street. Mother has a few hundred dollars, we can subsist upon it for a year by discharging all the servants and living with the greatest economy. Then will come the poor-house for father and mother, and for me God only knows.”
“I have made up my mind,” Edith said, shuddering. “There is but one way for escape, we must bury our love, I must be sacrificed.”
“No,” I protested. “You do not, you cannot love me.”
Edith turned deadly pale and gave me one look. The cruel words died on my lips. Then we sat and brooded. Edith sprang to her feet and exclaimed, “I have it, the one chance.”
There was a ring in her voice from which hope was bred.
“You will have to consent,” she said slowly, as if weighing every word.
“It is an inspiration,” she continued, “I will tell Fred Reingold that I will marry him one year from to-morrow, provided the twenty thousand dollars is not paid by that time. You will have one year in which to make a fortune.”
“I have not finished,” Edith said, she had divined my thoughts, “they have found great gold fields on the Yukon, it is a frightful country on the confines of Alaska. You must go there and find a fortune and be back in time.”
“That shall be a secret until you come back. I will see Fred Reingold to-morrow and to-morrow night you shall know your fate.”
The following evening she met me at the door and smiled. “It is all arranged,” she said. “The year has been granted, you are to go.”