"That seems too much for any man to bear." The door was opened by a gentle hand presently, and Marian came into the room.

Percival Nowell rose from his seat hastily and stood facing her, surprised by her beauty and an indefinable likeness which she bore to her mother--a likeness which brought his dead wife's face back to his mind with a sudden pang.

He had loved her after his own fashion once upon a time, and had grown weary of her and neglected her after the death of that short-lived selfish passion; but something, some faint touch of the old feeling, stirred his heart as he looked at his daughter to-night.

The emotion was as brief as the breath of a passing wind.

In the next moment he was thinking of his father's money, and how this girl had emerged from obscurity to rob him of it.
"You wish to speak to me on business, I am told," she said, in her clear low voice, wondering at the stranger's silence and deliberate scrutiny of her face.
"Yes, I have to speak to you on very serious business, Marian," he answered gravely.
"You are an utter stranger to me, and yet call me by my Christian name." "I am not an utter stranger to you.