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Barr, Robert, 1850-1912

"A Woman Intervenes"

At the end of the second year her profits
from the mine, including the return of the five thousand pounds which had
been sent to Ottawa as working capital, was still about five thousand
pounds under the thirty thousand pounds. She looked forward eagerly to
the time when she would be able to pay the thirty thousand pounds to her
father. Old Mr. Longworth had never spoken a word to his daughter about
the money. She had expected he would ask her what she had done with it,
but he had never mentioned the subject. Her conscience troubled her very
frequently about the method she had taken to obtain that large amount.
She saw that her father had changed in his manner towards her since that
day. He had given her the money, but he had given it, as one might say,
almost under compulsion, and there was no doubt that, generous as he
was, he did not like being coerced into parting with his money. Edith
Longworth had paid more for the mine than the amount of cash she had
deposited in Ottawa. She had paid for it by being cut off from her
father's confidence. Now he never asked her advice about any of his
business ventures, and, for the first time in many years, he had taken a
long sea-voyage without inviting her to accompany him. All this made the
girl more and more anxious to obtain the money to pay back her
indebtedness, and, if Wentworth had made the same offer at the end of the
second year which he had made at the close of the first, she would have
accepted it.


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