d Millicent, but his
affection for your father was a passion; his face always lit up when he
spoke to him. I used to think sometimes that it was like an old dog with
his master. It was quite touching to see them together. I think, Mark,
with you, that it is best that it should be as it is."

Gradually the conversation turned to other matters. Millicent was,
however, unable to take any part in it, and half an hour later she held
out her hand silently to Mark and left the room hurriedly. The next day
she was better, and was able to walk for a time with Mark in the garden
and talk more calmly about their mutual loss, for to her, no less than
to Mark, the Squire had been a father.

"'Tis strange to think that you are the Squire now, Mark," she said as
they sat together in the dining room on the evening before the funeral.

"You will think it stranger still, Millicent," he said, "when I tell you
that I am not the Squire, and never shall be."

She looked up in his face with wonder.

"What do you mean, Mark?"

"Well, dear, you will know tomorrow, as Mr. Prendergast, one of the
family solicitors, is coming down; but I think it is as well to tell you
beforehand. It has been a curious position all along. I never knew it
myself till my father told me when we went into the library after
the shot was fired. The news did not affect me one way or the other,
although it surprised me a great deal. Like yourself, I have always
supposed that you were my father's ward, the daughter of an old comrade
of his brother's. Well, it is a curious story, Millicent. But there is
no occasion for you to look frightened. The fact is you are my uncle's
daughter and my cousin."

"Oh, that is not very dreadful!" she exclaimed in a tone of relief.

"Not dreadful at all," Mark said. "But you see it involves the fact that
you are mistress of this estate, and not I."

Millicent stood up suddenly with a little cry. "No, no, Mark, it cannot
be! It would be dreadful, and I won't have it. Nothing could make me
have it. What, to take the estate away from you when you have all along
supposed it to be yours! How could I?"

"But you see it never has been mine, my dear. Father might have lived
another five-and-twenty years, and God knows I have never looked forward
to succeeding him. Sit down and let me tell you the story. It was not my
father's fault that he reigned here so long as master, it was the result
of a whim of your father's. And although my fathe