her behaviour confused him,
irritated him.

"Are you foolish?" he cried suddenly; half regretting the phrase the
instant he had uttered it.

Her lip twitched.

"No, Mr. Lancelot!" she faltered.

"But you talk as if you were," he said less roughly. "You mustn't run
away from the vicar just when he is going to take you to the lawyer's to
certify who you are, and see that you get your money."

"But I don't want to go with the vicar--I want to go with you. You said
you would take me with you." She was almost in tears now.

"Yes--but don't you--don't you understand that--that," he stammered;
then, temporising, "But I can wait."

"Can't the vicar wait?" said Mary Ann. He had never known her show such
initiative.

He saw that it was hopeless--that the money had made no more dint upon
her consciousness than some vague dream, that her whole being was set
towards the new life with him, and shrank in horror from the menace of
the vicar's withdrawal of her in the opposite direction. If joy and
redemption had not already lain in the one quarter, the advantages of the
other might have been more palpably alluring. As it was, her
consciousness was "full up" in the matter, so to speak. He saw that he
must tell her plain and plump, startle her out of her simple confidence.

"Listen to me, Mary Ann."

"Yessir."

"You are a young woman--not a baby. Strive to grasp what I am going to
tell you."

"Yessir," in a half-sob, that vibrated with the obstinate resentment of a
child that knows it is to be argued out of its instincts by adult
sophistry. What had become of her passive personality?

"You are now the owner of two and a half million dollars--that is about
five hundred thousand pounds. Five--hundred thousand--pounds. Think of
ten sovereigns--ten golden sovereigns like that Mrs. Leadbatter gave you.
Then ten times as much as that, and ten times as much as all that"--he
spread his arms wider and wider--"and ten times as much as all that, and
then"--here his arms were prematurely horizontal, so he concluded hastily
but impressively--"and then FIFTY times as much as all that. Do you
understand how rich you are?"

"Yessir." She was fumbling nervously at her gloves, half drawing them
off.

"Now all this money will last for ever. For you invest it--if only at
three per cent.--never mind what that is--and then you get fifteen
thousand a year--fifteen thousand golden sovereigns to spend every----"

"Please, sir