"You are quite safe from that danger, or indeed from any other danger,
so far as Miss Maturin is concerned. Nevertheless, it is but just that
you should understand the situation, so that if you scent danger of any
kind, you may escape while there is yet time."

"Unobservant though I am," remarked Stranleigh, "certain signs have not
escaped my notice. This commodious and delightful mansion is being
prepared for a house-party. I know the symptoms, for I have several
country places of my own. If, as I begin to suspect, I am in the way
here, just whisper the word and I'll take myself off in all good humour,
hoping to receive an invitation for some future time."

"If that's your notion of American hospitality, Stranleigh, you've got
another guess coming. You're a very patient man; will you listen to a
little family history? Taking your consent for granted, I plunge. My
father possessed a good deal of landed property in Pennsylvania. This
house is the old homestead, as they would call it in a heart-throb
drama. My father died a very wealthy man, and left his property
conjointly to my sister and myself. He knew we wouldn't quarrel over the
division, and we haven't. My activity has been mainly concentrated in
coal mines and in the railways which they feed, and financially I have
been very fortunate. I had intended to devote a good deal of attention
to this estate along certain lines which my father had suggested, but I
have never been able to do so, living, as I did, mostly in Philadelphia,
absorbed in my own business. My sister, however, has in a measure
carried out my father's plans, aided and abetted by her friend, Miss
Constance Maturin. My sister married a man quite as wealthy as herself,
a dreamy, impractical, scholarly person who once represented his country
as Minister to Italy, in Rome. She enjoyed her Italian life very much,
and studied with great interest the progress North Italy was making in
utilising the water-power coming from the Alps. In this she was ably
seconded by Miss Maturin, who is owner of forests and farms and
factories further down the river which flows past our house. Her
property, indeed, adjoins our own, but she does not possess that
unlimited power over it which Sis and I have over this estate, for her
father, having no faith in the business capacity of woman, formed his
undertakings into a limited liability company where, although he owned
the majority of stock during his life, he did not leave h