Let me present him to you, Mr.Thresk.And there's the family." He leaned back, with a smile in his eyes, watching Henry Thresk.

Robert Pettifer watched too.
"The family ?" Thresk asked.

"Is Mrs.Ballantyne a relation then ?" "She is going to be," said Dick.
"Yes," Mr.Hazlewood explained, still beaming and still watchful.
"Richard and Stella are going to be married." A pause followed which was just perceptible before Thresk spoke again.
But he had his face under control.

He took the stroke without flinching.
He turned to Dick with a smile.
"Some men have all the luck," he said, and Dick, who had been looking at him in bewilderment, cried: "Mr.Thresk?
Not the Mr.Thresk to whom I owe so much ?" "The very man," said Thresk, and Dick held out his hand to him gravely.
"Thank you," he said.

"When I think of the horrible net of doubt and assumption in which Stella was coiled, I tell you I feel cold down my spine even now.