e, "let me briefly explain to you the object ... hem
... of this momentous meeting here to-day."

"I am all attention, master," said Sue vaguely, and her eyes wide-open,
obviously absent, she gazed fixedly on the silhouette of Sir Marmaduke,
grimly outlined against the grayish window-panes.

"I must tell you, my dear child," resumed Master Skyffington after a
slight pause, during which he had studied with vague puzzledom the
inscrutable face of the young girl, "I must tell you that your late
father, the noble Earl of Dover, had married the heiress of Peter Ford,
the wealthiest merchant this country hath ever known. She was your own
lamented mother, and the whole of her fortune, passing through her
husband's hands, hath now devolved upon you. My much-esteemed patron--I
may venture to say friend--Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, having been
appointed your legal guardian by the Court of Chancery, and I myself
being thereupon named the repository of your securities, these have been
administered by me up to now.... You are listening to me, are you not,
my dear young lady?"

The question was indeed necessary, for even to Master Skyffington's
unobservant mind it was apparent that Sue's eyes had a look of aloofness
in them, of detachment from her surroundings, which was altogether
inexplicable to the worthy attorney's practical sense of the due fitness
of things.

At his query she made a sudden effort to bring her thoughts back from
the past to the present, to drag her heart and her aching brain away
from that half-hour spent in the hall, from that conversation with her
friend, from the recollection of that terribly cruel blow which she had
been forced to deal to the man who loved her best in all the world.

"Yes, yes, kind master," she said, "I am listening."

And she fixed her eyes resolutely on the attorney's solemn face, forcing
her mind to grasp what he was about to say.

"By the terms of your noble father's will," continued Master
Skyffington, as soon as he had satisfied himself that he at last held
the heiress's attention, "the securities, receipts and all other moneys
are to be given over absolutely and unconditionally into your own hands
on your twenty-first birthday."

"Which is to-day," said Sue simply.

"Which is to-day," assented the lawyer. "The securities, receipts and
other bonds, grants of monopolies and so forth lie before you on this
table.... They represent in value over half a million of English
money.