It was
so easy; merely the signing of a check from time to time, and it was
done. I say this because I really think if it had involved any
personal sacrifice on my part, even of an hour of my time, or the
labor of a thought, I should not have done it. For with my return to
the city my interest in my cousin revived, absorbing me to such an
extent that any matter disconnected with her soon lost all charm for
me.
"Two years passed; I was the slave of Evelyn Blake, but there was no
engagement between us. My father's determined opposition was enough
to prevent that. But there was an understanding which I fondly hoped
would one day open for me the way of happiness. But I did not know my
father. Sick as he was--he was at that time laboring under the
disease which in a couple of months later bore him to the tomb--he
kept an eye upon my movements and seemed to probe my inmost heart. At
last he came to a definite decision and spoke.
"His words opened a world of dismay before me. I was his only child,
as he remarked, and it had been and was the desire of his heart to
leave me as rich and independent a man as himself. But I seemed
disposed to commit one of those acts against which he had the most
determined prejudice; marriage between cousins being in his eyes an
unsanctified and dangerous proceeding, liable to consequences the
most unhappy.
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