This suggestion was too dreadful for comment, and Mrs. Sorrel closed her
eyes, visibly shuddering.

"Who would have thought it possible!" she moaned drearily, "a
millionaire, with such mad ideas! I _had_ thought him always such a
sensible man! And he seemed to admire you so much! What will he do with
all his money?"

The fair Lucy sighed, sobbed, and swallowed her tears into silence. And
again, like the doubtful refrain of a song in a bad dream, her mother
moaned and murmured--

"What will he do with all his money!"




CHAPTER IV


Two or three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private
office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or
trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice
detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulæ preliminary to an
impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and
had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,--signs that his
mind was wandering somewhat from the point at issue. He was a
conscientious man, but he was getting old, and the disputations of
obstinate or foolish clients were becoming troublesome to him. Moreover,