"Tell me the story, Barbara," said Alan, "and tell it briefly, for I
cannot bear much more of this."

She looked at him and began in a slow, even voice:

"After you had gone, dear, things went on as usual for a month or two.
Then came the great Sahara Company trouble. First there were rumours
and the shares began to go down. My uncle bought them in by tens and
hundreds of thousands, to hold up the market, because he was being
threatened, but of course he did not know then that Lord Aylward--for
I forgot to tell you, he had become a lord somehow--was secretly one of
the principal sellers, let him deny it if he can. At last the Ottoman
Government, through the English ambassador, published its repudiation
of the concession, which it seems was a forgery, actually executed or
obtained in Constantinople by my uncle. Well, there was a fearful smash.
Writs were taken out against my uncle, but before they could be served,
he died suddenly of heart disease. I was with him at the time and he
kept saying he saw that gold mask which Jeekie calls Bonsa, the thing
you took back to Africa. He had a fine funeral, for what he had done
was not publicly known, and when his will was opened I found that he had
left me his fortune, but made Lord Aylward there my trustee until I came
to the full age of twenty-five under my father's will. Alan, don't force
me to tell you what sort of a guardian he was to me; also there was no
fortune, it had all gone; also I had very, very little left, for almost
all my own money had gone too. In his despair he had forged papers
to get it in order to support those Sahara Syndicate shares. Still I
managed to borrow about £2000 from that little lawyer out of the £5000
that remain to me, an independent sum which he was unable to touch, and,
Alan, with it I came to find you.