ied away, and what she had seen had
given her a strange feeling of fear and discomfort. Barthorpe, she
knew, was not the sort of man to be crossed or thwarted or balked of
his will, and now----

"Supposing Barthorpe should begin to hate me because all the money is
mine?" she thought. "Then--why, then I should have no one! No one of my
own flesh and blood, anyway. Of course, there's Mr. Tertius. But--I must
see Barthorpe. I must tell him that I shall insist on sharing--if it's
all mine, I can do that. And yet--why didn't Uncle Jacob divide it? Why
did he leave Barthorpe--nothing?"

Still pondering sadly over these and kindred subjects Peggie went
upstairs to a parlour of her own, a room in which she did as she liked
and made into a den after her own taste. There, while the November
afternoon deepened in shadow, she sat and thought still more deeply. And
she was still plunged in thought when Kitteridge came softly into the
room and presented a card. Peggie took it from the butler's salver and
glanced half carelessly at it. Then she looked at Kitteridge with some
concern.

"Mr. Burchill?" she said. "Here?"

"No, miss," answered Kitteridge. "Mr. Burchill desired me to present his
most respectful sympathy, and to say that if he could be of any service
to you or to the family, he begged that you would command him. His
address is on this card, miss."

"Very kind of him," murmured Peggie, and laid the card aside on her
writing-table. When Kitteridge had gone she picked it up and looked at
it again. Burchill?--she had been thinking of him only a few minutes
before the butler's entrance; thinking a good deal. And her thoughts had
been disquieted and unhappy. Burchill was the last man in the world that
she wished to have anything to do with, and the fact that his name
appeared on Jacob Herapath's will had disturbed her more than she would
have cared to admit.

CHAPTER XI

THE SHADOW

Mr. Halfpenny, conducting Mr. Tertius to the coupe brougham, installed
him in its further corner, got in himself and bade his coachman drive
slowly to 331, Upper Seymour Street.

"I said slowly," he remarked as they moved gently away, "because I
wanted a word with you before we see this young man. Tertius--what's the
meaning of all this?"

Mr. Tertius groaned dolefully and shook his head.

"There is so much, Halfpenny," he answered, "that I don't quite know
what you specifically mean by this. Do you mean----"

"I mean, first o