for him to receive as a favour
what was his father's by right. I do not know that many men would have
regarded it in that light."

"I think," said the girl with a little quickening of her pulses, "that
Mr. Alton's view was right!"

"Well," said Deringham, with a little smile that seemed to indicate
that the point was not important, "that brings us to his other motive,
which displays a very creditable feeling. Tristan Alton, as you know,
only relented upon his deathbed, when, as I pointed out to our kinsman,
his senses were, in the opinion even of those who signed his will, a
trifle clouded, and Alton was reluctant to profit by a half-delirious
fancy which deprived us, or to be more literal, you, of what was
virtually your own. As I told him no man in the possession of all his
wits would have made such a will, and there was a probability that it
could he successfully contested."

"Then I think you blundered, father," said the girl.

Deringham raised his hand as though to indicate that he did not purpose
to discuss the question. "I have been trying to show you that Alton
never regarded Carnaby as his. You follow me?"

"No. I go farther," said the girl with a curious smile. "All that you
have told me was quite clear to me some while ago."

"Now we come to the present. Alton has proved to myself and the lawyer
that he is solvent. That is if he sold everything he could just pay
his debts, but because he does not intend to sell, he stands
figuratively speaking with his back to the wall, and appears to
consider that financial ruin may overtake him. That being so he has
while he has the power made over all his rights in Carnaby to you."

Alice Deringham rose up with a little gasp, quivering. "Father," she
said in a strained voice, "I don't think I can forgive you."

Deringham smiled deprecatingly. "I think that is beside the point," he
said. "It seems to me that Alton has acted most becomingly, and if he
survives his difficulties we could, of course, come to some amicable
understanding with him respecting the partition of the property."

The girl's face grew a trifle plainer, for one word had an ominous ring.

"There is more than you have told me," and once more it struck her that
Deringham was curiously haggard.

"Well," he said, "life is always a trifle uncertain, and Alton has
twice met with disaster in the ranges."

The girl stood still looking at him steadily with a vague terror in her
eyes. Th