softness that banished
all haughtiness, and made her for the moment the tender woman that she
was.

"So," she said, "so I shall find work to do, and I will go out again and
earn my living and--"

"There will be no need!" the General said.

"I cannot stop here and live on your charity!"

"There will be no need," he repeated.

"Mr. Rankin," announced a servant. The door had opened, and the man she
had been watching came in.

He shook hands with the General.

"Joan, this is Mr. Rankin. Rankin, this is Miss Joan Meredyth."

She turned to him and bowed slightly.

"You will allow me to congratulate you, Miss Meredyth. Believe me, it is
a great happiness to me that at last, after much diligent seeking, I
have, thanks to the General here, found you. General--you have told
her?" He broke off, for there was a puzzled look in the girl's face.

"Told her nothing--nothing," said the General; "that's your business."

Strangely, their words aroused little or no curiosity in her mind. What
was it she had been told or not told, she did not know. Somehow she did
not care. She saw a pair of pleading eyes, she saw the colour rise in a
man's cheeks. She saw an outstretched hand, held pleadingly to her, and
she had repulsed that hand in disdain.

But Mr. Rankin was talking.

"Your uncle, on his way back to this country, died on board ship. His
only son was killed, poor fellow, in the War. There was no one else, the
will leaves everything to you unconditionally. Through myself he had
purchased the old place, Starden Hall, only a few months before his
death, and it was his intention to live there. So the house and the
money become yours, Miss Meredyth. There is Starden, and the income of
roughly fifteen thousand a year, all unconditionally yours."

And listening, dazed for the moment, there came into her mind an
unworthy thought--a thought that brought a sense of shame to her, yet
the thought had come.

Did that man--last night--know of this, of this fortune when he had told
her that he loved her?

A few days had passed, days that had found Joan fully occupied with the
many matters connected with her inheritance.

To-day she and the old General were talking in the drawing-room of the
General's house.

"Of course, if you prefer it and wish it, my dear."

"I do!" said Joan. "I see no reason why Lady Linden should be in any way
interested in me and my affairs. I prefer that you should tell her
nothing at all. I was very f