sent for in great haste to the small inn
into which the two injured men had been carried, arrived only in time to
witness their last moments. Frank died first and Andrew some few minutes
later--an important fact, as was afterwards shown when the latter's will
came to be read.

This will was a peculiar one. By its provisions the bulk of the King's
great property was left to his brother Frank, but with this especial
stipulation that in case his brother failed to survive him, the full
legacy as bequeathed to him should be given unconditionally to his
widow. Frank's demise, as I have already stated, preceded his brother's
by several minutes and consequently Arabella became the chief legatee;
and that is how she obtained her millions. But--and here a startling
feature comes in--when the will came to be administered, the secret
underlying the break between Frank and his wife was brought to light by
a revelation of the fact that he had practised a great deception upon
her at the time of his marriage. Instead of being a bachelor as was
currently believed, he was in reality a widower, and the father of a
child. This fact, so long held secret, had become hers when her own
child was born; and constituted as she was, she not only never forgave
the father, but conceived such a hatred for the innocent object of their
quarrel that she refused to admit its claims or even to acknowledge its
existence.

But later--after his death, in fact--she showed some sense of obligation
towards one who under ordinary conditions would have shared her wealth.
When the whole story became heard, and she discovered that this secret
had been kept from his brother as well as from herself, and that
consequently no provision had been made in any way for the child thus
thrown directly upon her mercy, she did the generous thing and took the
forsaken girl into her own home. But she never betrayed the least love
for her, her whole heart being bound up in her boy, who was, as all
agree, a prodigy of talent.

But this boy, for all his promise and seeming strength of constitution,
died when barely seven years old, and the desolate mother was left with
nothing to fill her heart but the uncongenial daughter of her husband's
first wife. The fact that this child, slighted as it had hitherto been,
would, in the event of her uncle having passed away before her father,
have been the undisputed heiress of a large portion of the wealth now at
the disposal of her arrogant