Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/168

156 self. It was all done for me. I was his idol, and it has almost broken his heart that his money and position were gone before I was old enough to profit by them. He always wanted to be rich again, but it was for me. He wanted me to have everything—pretty clothes to wear, and good things to eat, and theaters and amusements, like other girls. He tried to keep up with his old bonanza friends who were tired of him and had no use for him, because he thought their wives might be kind to me and ask me to their houses. He has forgotten himself and what he owed to me, but it was because he loved me so much."

"Viola dear," he said pleadingly, "I understand all this. No one blames the colonel."

She did not seem to hear him. Her mood was past control.

"When we first met you things were at their worst. We were in terrible need. We had had some money—quite a good deal—three years before; it was for a mortgage on the house, or something; but it had all gone, mostly in Pine Street. Yours must have gone there, too. Everything he has had of late years goes there, because he is determined to make a second fortune for me before he dies. And he never will—poor old man! he never will. I did what I could and made a little, but he could n't bear it, because he hated to think I