turn scarlet from the roots of her hair to
her chin.

Miss Ingate had dropped the letter. Audrey snatched it.

"My dear Moze," the letter ran. "I send you herewith a report of the
meeting of the Great Mexican Oil Company at New York. You will see that
they duly authorised the contract by which the Zacatecas Oil Corporation
transfers our property to them in exchange for shares at the rate of four
Great Mexican shares for one Zacatecas share. As each of the Development
Syndicate shares represents ten of the Corporation shares, and as on my
recommendation you put L4,500 into the Syndicate, you will therefore own
180,000 Great Mexican shares. They are at present above par. Mark my
words, they will be worth from seven to ten dollars apiece in a year's
time. I think you now owe me a good turn, eh?"

The letter was signed with a name unknown to either of them, and it was
dated from Coleman Street, E.C.

CHAPTER IV

MR. FOULGER

Half an hour later the woman and the girl, still in the study and severely
damaged by the culminating events of Mr. Cowl's visit, were almost
prostrated by the entirely unexpected announcement of the arrival of Mr.
Foulger. Mr. Foulger was the late Mr. Moze's solicitor from Chelmsford.
Audrey's first thought was: "Has heaven telegraphed to him on my behalf?"
But her next was that all the solicitors in the world would now be useless
in the horrible calamity that had befallen.

It is to be noted that Audrey was no worse off than before the discovery of
the astounding value of the Zacatecas shares. The Moze property, inherited
through generations and consisting mainly in farms and tithe-rents, was not
in the slightest degree impaired. On the contrary, the steady progress of
agriculture in Essex indicated that its yield must improve with years.
Nevertheless Audrey felt as though she and her mother were ruined, and as
though the National Reformation Society had been guilty of a fearful crime
against a widow and an orphan. The lovely vision of immeasurable wealth had
flashed and scintillated for a month in front of her dazzled eyes--and then
blackness, nothingness, the dark void! She knew that she would never be
happy again.

And she thought, scornfully, "How could father have been so preoccupied and
so gloomy, with all those riches?" She could not conceive anybody as rich
as her father secretly was not being day and night in a condition of pure
delight at the whole spectacle of existence. Her