What, to take the estate away from you when you have all along supposed it to be yours! How could I ?" "But you see it never has been mine, my dear.

Father might have lived another five-and-twenty years, and God knows I have never looked forward to succeeding him.

Sit down and let me tell you the story.

It was not my father's fault that he reigned here so long as master, it was the result of a whim of your father's.

And although my father fought against it, he could not resist the dying prayer of my uncle." He then related the whole circumstances under which the girl had been brought up as Millicent Conyers, instead of Millicent Conyers Thorndyke, and how the estate had been left by Colonel Thorndyke's will to his brother until such time as Millicent should come of age, or marry, and how he had ordered that when that event took place the rest of his property in money and jewels was to be divided equally between Mark and herself.
"It must not be, Mark," she said firmly.