y follow you, madam," he answered.

"I am asking you," she repeated deliberately, "whether amongst your
father's private papers, which I presume you have looked through, you
found anything of a surprising nature?"

He shook his head.

"I found scarcely any," he answered, "only his will and a memorandum of
a few investments. May I ask----"

She turned towards the door.

"No!" she said, "do not ask me any questions. To tell you the truth, I
am not yet fully persuaded that the necessity exists."

"I do not understand," he protested.

[Illustration: "FORGIVE ME," HE SAID, WITH HIS HAND UPON THE GATE. Page
117]

She shrugged her shoulders. She did not trouble to explain her words.
He followed her along the cool, white-flagged hall, hung with old prints
and trophies of sport, into the few yards of garden outside, brilliant
with cottage flowers. Beyond the little iron gate her carriage was
waiting--a low victoria, drawn by a pair of great horses, whose sleek
coats and dark crimson rosettes suggested rather a turn in the Park
than these country lanes. The young man was becoming desperate. She was
leaving him altogether mystified. Somewhere or other he had missed his
cue: he had meant to have conducted the interview so differently. And
never had she looked so provokingly well! He recognized, with hopeless
admiration, the perfection of her toilette--the trim white flannel
dress, shaped by the hand of an artist to reveal in its simple lines
the peculiar grace of her slim figure; the patent shoes with their
suggestion of open-work silk stockings; the black picture hat and veil,
a delicate recognition of her visit to a house of mourning, yet light
and gossamer-like, with no suggestion of gloom. Never had she seemed so
desirable to him, so fascinating and yet so unattainable. He made a last
and clumsy effort to re-establish himself.

"Forgive me," he said, with his hand upon the gate, "but I must ask you
what you mean by that last question. My father had no secrets that I
know of. How could he, when for the last forty years his life was
practically spent in this village street?"

She nodded her head slowly.

"Sometimes," she murmured, "events come to those even who sit and wait,
those whose lives are absolutely secluded. No one is safe from fate, you
know."

"But my father!" he answered. "He had no tastes, no interests outside
the boundary of your estates."

She motioned to him to open the gate.

"Perhaps not," she