was on the terrace, and beside her stood a girl, not tall, very
slender. Her arm was through Chat's, her back toward us, her face in
profile as she turned to talk--and she was talking briskly and in
excited interest--to her companion. The profile was small, regular,
refined; I could not see the eyes; the hair was a golden brown, very
plentiful.

"Who's that pretty girl?" I cried.

Jenny copied the attitude of the pair on the terrace; she put her arm
through mine and said with a laugh, "She is pretty, then?" The laugh
sounded triumphant. "Why, as pretty a little thing as a man could find
in a lifetime!" I cried in honest enthusiasm.

"Oh, come, you're not such a hopeless old bachelor after all," said
Jenny. "Not that I in the least want you to fall in love with her--not
you, Austin."

"I think I am--half!"

"Keep just the other half for me. Half's as much as I want, you know."
Her voice sounded sad again, yet whimsically sad. "But I do want that
from you, I think." She pressed my arm; then, waiting for no answer, she
went on gayly, "I think I shall surprise Catsford with that!"

"She's going to pay you a visit?" I asked.

"She's going to live here," Jenny answered. "That's my legacy, Austin."

I smote my free arm against my thigh. "By Heaven, the girl on the
mantelpiece at Hatcham Ford!" I cried.

At the moment the girl on the terrace turned round, saw us, and waved
her hand merrily to Jenny. Certainly the prettiest little creature you
ever saw--in the small, dainty, delicate, roguishly appealing way: and
most indubitably the original of that picture which I had seen at
Hatcham Ford, which vanished on the night when Octon went forth
alone--little thinking that Jenny would follow him.

I turned from her to Jenny in astonishment. "But I'd made up my mind
that it was his wife."

"I'm glad he told you he was married. He told you the dreadful thing
about it, too, didn't he? It wasn't a thing one could talk about--he'd
never have allowed that for a minute--but I wish everybody could have
known. It seems a sort of excuse for what they all quarreled with in
him. He'd been made to feel the world his enemy when he was young; that
must tell on a man, mustn't it?"

"This is a daughter? He never said anything about a daughter."

"Well, I suppose you didn't happen to get on that--and you didn't ask. A
woman would have asked, of course, whether there were any children--and
how old they were, and what was the color of t