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whole station as they appear to be anxious to do, and I shall not return to the district. I’ll probably go to England for a time. I’m holding up the sale for a week, but do me at least this favor: read this letter through after an interval of twenty-four hours and do not answer it until then. The world is a very beautiful place, my dear Ann, and we could see it together.

“I’m not discounting your own capacity as a money-maker. You appear to be doing exceedingly well. But after years of a rather irksome grind, I don’t think it is possible that you would have made as much money as I could give you tomorrow. Money means freedom. That’s its greatest virtue, and freedom to enjoy its pleasures while you are young is not to be despised.”

Ann read the letter through carefully, and though she had no doubt as to what her reply would be, she placed it in the envelope and locked it up in her desk. She meant to accede to Waring’s request, and read it again later. The lapse of time wasn’t in the least likely to alter her decision, she felt sure; and yet she knew that the writer of the letter did, by this means, keep his offer before her. She was honest enough not to deny that to a certain extent she was tempted now, as she had never been before, to accept Waring’s proposal. It meant the solution of so many of her difficulties. But, though she admitted the truth of his statement, “money means freedom,” she wasn’t blind to the fact that a loveless marriage didn’t mean anything of the sort. She had already tasted the joy of an income earned by her own efforts. Only one thing she knew would ever induce her to give up her