t alarmed
her, this too keen interest which she found herself taking in the
fortunes of Severac Bablon.

At Charing Cross the taxi-man received a sovereign. It was more than
double his fare. He knew, then, that his professional instincts had not
misled him, but that he had been driving an American millionairess.

In the foyer of the Astoria, Mary Evershed was waiting, with Mrs.
Wellington Lacey in stately attendance. Mary was simply radiant. She
sprang forward to meet Zoe, both hands outsretched.

"Wherever have you been?" she cried.

"Picture show!" said Zoe, with composed mendacity, glancing at the
aristocratic chaperon.

"I could not possibly wait until the morning," Mary ran on, her eyes
sparkling with excitement. "I had to run along here straight from
horrid, stuffy Downing Street to tell you. Dick has inherited a
fortune."

"What!" said Zoe, and grasped both her friend's hands. "Inherited a
fortune!"

"Well--not quite a fortune, perhaps--five thousand pounds."

And John Jacob Oppner's daughter, a real chum to the core, never even
smiled. For she knew what five thousand pounds meant to these two, knew
that it meant more than five _hundred_ thousands meant to her; since it
meant the difference between union and parting, between love and loss,
meant that Sir Richard Haredale could now shake off the fetters that
bound him, and look the world in the face.

"Oh, Mary," she said, and her pretty eyes were quite tearful. "How very,
very glad I am! Isn't it just great! It sounds almost too good to be
true! Come right upstairs and tell me all about it!"

In Zoe's cosy room the story was told, not a romantic one in its
essentials, but romantic enough in its potential sequel. A remote aunt
was the benefactress; and her death, news of which had been communicated
to Sir Richard that evening, had enriched him by five thousand pounds
and served to acquaint him, at its termination, with the existence of a
relation whom he had never met and rarely heard of.

Mr. Oppner came in towards the close of the story, and offered dry
congratulations in that singular voice which seemed to have been
preserved, for generations, in sand.

"He ought to invest it," he said. "Runeks are a good thing."

"You see," explained Mary. "He hasn't actually got it yet, only the
solicitor's letter. And he says he will be unable to believe in his good
luck until the money is actually in the bank!"

"Never let money lie idle," preached Oppner.