perfectly independent I am, you
would think it strange, wouldn't you? But you would think it still
more surprising when you found out that I and my uncle already know how
liberally and generously you had provided for Mr. Somers in the future."

"How I had provided for Mr. Somers in the future?" repeated Mr.
Rushbrook, looking at the fire, "eh?"

"Yes," said the young girl, indifferently, "how you were to put him in
to succeed you in the Water Front Trust, and all that. He told it to
me and my uncle at the outset of our acquaintance, confidentially, of
course, and I dare say with an honorable delicacy that was like him,
but--I suppose now you will think me foolish--all the while I'd rather
he had not."

"You'd rather he had not," repeated Mr. Rushbrook, slowly.

"Yes," continued Grace, leaning forward with her rounded elbows on her
knees, and her slim, arched feet on the fender. "Now you are going
to laugh at me, Mr. Rushbrook, but all this seemed to me to spoil any
spontaneous feeling I might have towards him, and limit my independence
in a thing that should be a matter of free will alone. It seemed too
much like a business proposition! There, my kind friend!" she added,
looking up and trying to read his face with a half girlish pout,
followed, however, by a maturer sigh, "I'm bothering you with a woman's
foolishness instead of talking business. And"--another sigh--"I suppose
it IS business for my uncle, who has, it seems, bought into this Trust
on these possible contingencies, has, perhaps, been asking questions
of Mr. Leyton. But I don't want you to think that I approve of them, or
advise your answering them. But you are not listening."

"I had forgotten something," said Rushbrook, with an odd preoccupation.
"Excuse me a moment--I will return at once."

He left the room quite as abstractedly, and when he reached the passage,
he apparently could not remember what he had forgotten, as he walked
deliberately to the end window, where, with his arms folded behind his
back, he remained looking out into the street. A passer-by, glancing
up, might have said he had seen the pale, stern ghost of Mr. Rushbrook,
framed like a stony portrait in the window. But he presently turned
away, and re-entered the room, going up to Grace, who was still sitting
by the fire, in his usual strong and direct fashion.

"Well! Now let me see what you want. I think this would do."

He took a seat at his open desk, and rapidly wrote a few li