her?" He broke off, for there was a puzzled look in the girl's face.

"Told her nothing--nothing," said the General; "that's your business."

Strangely, their words aroused little or no curiosity in her mind. What
was it she had been told or not told, she did not know. Somehow she did
not care. She saw a pair of pleading eyes, she saw the colour rise in a
man's cheeks. She saw an outstretched hand, held pleadingly to her, and
she had repulsed that hand in disdain.

But Mr. Rankin was talking.

"Your uncle, on his way back to this country, died on board ship. His
only son was killed, poor fellow, in the War. There was no one else, the
will leaves everything to you unconditionally. Through myself he had
purchased the old place, Starden Hall, only a few months before his
death, and it was his intention to live there. So the house and the
money become yours, Miss Meredyth. There is Starden, and the income of
roughly fifteen thousand a year, all unconditionally yours."

And listening, dazed for the moment, there came into her mind an
unworthy thought--a thought that brought a sense of shame to her, yet
the thought had come.

Did that man--last night--know of this, of this fortune when he had told
her that he loved her?

A few days had passed, days that had found Joan fully occupied with the
many matters connected with her inheritance.