Sherrington Trimm arrived on the following afternoon, rosier and fresher than ever, and considerably reduced in weight. After the first general and affectionate greeting he proceeded to interview each member of the family in private, as though he were getting up evidence for a case. It was characteristic of him that he spoke to Mamie first. The most important point in his estimation was to ascertain whether the girl were 337really in love, or whether she had only contracted a passing attachment for George Wood. Knowing all that he did, and all that he supposed was unknown to his wife, he could not but regard the match with complacency, so far as worldly advantages were concerned. But if he had been once assured that his daughter’s happiness was really at stake, he would have given her as readily to George, the comparatively impecunious author, as to Mr. Winton Wood, the future millionaire.

“Now, Mamie,” he said, linking his arm in hers and leading her into the garden, “now, Mamie, tell us all about it.”

Mamie blushed faintly and gave her father a shy glance, and then looked down.

“There is not much to tell,” she answered. “I love him, and I am very happy. Is not that enough?”

“You are quite sure of yourself, eh?” Mr. Trimm looked sharply at her face. “And how long has this been going on?”

“All my life—though—well, how can I explain, papa? You ought to understand. One finds out such things all at once, and then one knows that they have always been there.”

“I suppose so,” said Sherry. “You did not know that ‘it,’ as you call it, was there when I went away.”

“Oh yes, I did.”

“Well, did you know it a year ago?”

“No, perhaps not. Oh, papa, this is like twenty questions.” Mamie laughed happily.

“Is it? Never played the game—cannot say. And you have no doubts about him, have you?”

“How can anybody doubt him!” Mamie exclaimed indignantly.

“It is my business to doubt,” said Sherry Trimm with a twinkle in his eye. “’I am the doubter and the doubt’—never knew what it meant till to-day.”

“Then go away, papa!” laughed the young girl.

“And let George have a chance. I suppose that is 338what you mean. On the whole, perhaps I could do nothing better. But I will just see whether he has any doubts, and finish my cigar with him.”

Thereupon Sherrington Trimm turned sharply on his heel and went in search of George. He found him standing on the verandah pensively examining a trail of ants that were busily establishing communication between the garden walk and a tiny fragment of sponge cake which had fallen upon the step during afternoon tea.

“George,” said Sherry in business-like tones, through which, however, the man’s kindly good nature was clearly appreciable, “do you mind telling me in a few words why you want to marry my daughter?”

George turned his head, and there was a pleasant smile upon his face. Then he pointed to the trail of ants.

“Mr. Sherrington Trimm,” he said, “do you mind explaining to me very briefly why those ants are so particularly anxious to get at that piece of cake?”

“Like it, I suppose,” Sherry answered laconically.

“That is exactly my case. I have gone to the length of falling very much in love with Mamie, and I wish to marry her. I understand that her views coincide with mine and that you make no objections. I think that the explanation is complete.”

“Very well stated. Now, look here. The only thing I care for on earth is that child’s happiness. She is not like all girls. You may have found that out, by this time. If you behave yourself as I think you will, she will be the best wife to you that man ever had. If you do not—well, there is no knowing what she will do, but whatever it is, it will surprise you. I do not know whether hearts break nowadays as easily as they used to, and I am not prepared to state positively that Mamie’s heart would break under the circumstances. But if you do not treat her properly, she will make it pretty deuced hot for you, and by the Eternal, so will I, my boy. I like to put the thing in its proper light.”

“You do,” laughed George, “with uncommon clearness. I am prepared to run all risks of that sort.”

339“Hope so,” returned Sherry Trimm, smoking thoughtfully. “Now then, George,” he resumed in a more confidential tone, after a short pause, “there is a little matter of business between you and me. We are old friends, and I might be your father in point of age, and now about to become your father-in-law in point of fact. How about the bread and butter? I have no intention of giving Mamie a fortune. No, no, I know you are aware of that, but there are material considerations, you know. Now, just give me an idea of how you propose to live.”

“If I do not lose my health, we can live very comfortably,” George answered. “I think I can undertake to say that we should need no help. It would not be like this—like your way of living, of course. But we can have all we need and a certain amount of small luxury.”

“Hum!” ejaculated Sherry Trimm in a doubting tone. “Not much luxury, I am afraid.”

“A certain amount,” George answered quietly. “I have earned over ten thousand dollars during the last year and I have kept most of it.”

“Really!” exclaimed the other. “I did not know that literature was such a good thing. But you may not always earn as much, next year, or the year after.”

“That is unlikely, unless I break down. I do not know why that should happen to me.”

“You do not look like it,” said Sherry, eyeing George’s spare and vigorous frame, and his clear, brown skin.

“I do not feel like it,” said George.

“Well, look here. I will tell you what I will do. I have my own reasons for not giving you a house just now. But I will give Mamie just half as much as you make, right along. I suppose that is fair. I need not tell you that she will have everything some day.”

“You may give Mamie anything you like,” George answered indifferently. “I shall never ask questions. If I fall ill and cannot work for a long time together, you will have to support her, and my father will support me.”

340“I daresay we could spare you a crust, my boy,” said Sherrington Trimm, laying his small hand upon George’s broad, bony shoulder and pushing him along. “I do not want to keep you any longer, if you have anything to do.”

George sauntered away in the direction of the garden, and Sherry Trimm went indoors to find his wife. Totty met him in the drawing-room, having just returned from a secret interview with her cook, in the interests of Sherry’s first dinner at home.

“Totty, look here,” he said, selecting a comfortable chair and sitting down. He leaned back, crossed his legs, raised his hands and set them together, thumb to thumb and finger to finger, but said nothing more.

“I am looking,” said Totty with a sweet smile. She seated herself beside him. “I have already looked. You are wonderfully better—I am so glad.”

“Yes. Those waters have screwed me up a peg. But that is not what I mean. When I say, look here, I mean to suggest that you should concentrate your gigantic intellect upon the consideration of the matter in hand. You have made this match, and you are responsible for it. Will you tell me why you have made it?”

“How do you mean that I have made it?” asked Totty evasively.

“Innocence, thy name is Charlotte!” exclaimed Sherry, looking at the ceiling. “You brought George here, you knew that Mamie liked him and that he would like her, not on the first day, nor on the second, but inevitably on the third or fourth. You knew that on the fifth day they would love each other, that they would tell each other so on the sixth, and that the seventh day, being one of rest, would be devoted to obtaining our consent. You knew also that George was, and is, a penniless author—I admit that he earns a good deal—and yet you have done all in your power to make Mamie marry him. The fact that I like him has nothing to do with it.”

341“Nothing to do with it! Oh, Sherry, how can you say such things!”

“Nothing whatever. I would have liked lots of other young fellows just as well. What especial reason had you for selecting this particular young fellow? That is what I want to get at.”

“Oh, is that all? Mamie loved him, my dear. I knew it long ago, and as I knew that you would not disapprove, I brought him here. It is not a question of money. We have more than we can ever need. It is not as if we had two or three sons to start in the world, Sherry.”

She lent an intonation of sadness to the last words, which, as she was aware, always produced the same effect upon her husband. He had bitterly regretted having no son to bear his honourable name.

“That is just it,” he answered sadly. “Mamie is everything, and everything is for her. That is the reason why we should be careful. She is not like a great many girls. She has a heart and she will break it, if she is not happy.”

“That is the very reason. You do not seem to realise that she is madly in love.”

“No doubt, but was she madly in love, as you call it, when you brought them here?”

“Long before that——”

“Then why did you never tell me—we might have had him to the house all the time——”

“Because I supposed, as every one else did, that he meant to marry Constance Fearing. I did not want to spoil his life, and I thought that Mamie would get over it. But the thing came to nothing. In fact, I begin to believe that there never was anything in it, and that the story was all idle gossip from beginning to end. He is on as good terms as ever with her and goes over there from time to time to console poor Grace.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Sherry in a thoughtful tone.

“You need not say ‘oh,’ like that. There is nothing 342to be afraid of. It is perfectly natural that the poor woman should like to see him, when he nearly died in trying to save her husband. They say she is in a dreadful state, half mad, and ill, and so changed!”

“Poor John!” exclaimed Sherry sadly. “I shall never see his like again.” He sighed, for he had been very fond of the man, besides looking upon him as a most promising partner in his law business.

“It was dreadful!” Mrs. Trimm shuddered as she thought of the accident. “I cannot bear to talk about it,” she added.

A short pause followed, during which Totty wore a very sad expression, and Sherry examined attentively a ring he wore upon his finger, in which a dark sapphire was set between two very white diamonds.

“There is one thing,” he said suddenly. “The sooner we pull up stakes the better. I do not propose to spend the best part of my life in the cars. The weather is cool and we will go back to town. So pack up your traps, Totty, and let us be off. Have you written to Tom?”

“No,” said Totty. “I would not announce the engagement till we were settled in town.”

Sherrington Trimm departed on the following morning, alleging with truth that the business could not be allowed to go to pieces. Totty and the two young people were to return two or three days later, and active preparations were at once made for moving. Totty, indeed, could not bear the idea of allowing her husband to remain alone in New York. It was possible that at any moment he might discover that the will was missing from her brother’s box. She might indeed have been spared much anxiety in this matter had she known that although Sherry had sealed and marked the document himself, it was not he who had placed it in the receptacle where it had been found by his wife. Sherry had handed it across the table to John Bond, telling him to put it in Craik’s deed-box, and had seen John leave the room with it, but had never seen it since. It was not, indeed, 343until much later that he had communicated to his partner the contents of the paper. If it could not now be found, Sherry would suppose that John had accidentally put it into the wrong box and a general search would be made. Then it would be thought that John had mislaid it. In any case poor John was dead and could not defend himself. Sherry would go directly to Tom Craik and get him to sign a duplicate, but he would never, under any conceivable combination of circumstances, connect his wife with the disappearance of the will, nor mention the fact in her presence. Totty, however, was ignorant of these facts, and lived in the constant fear of being obliged to explain matters to her husband. Though she had thought much of the matter she had not hit upon any expedient for restoring the document to its place. She kept it in a small Indian cabinet which her brother had once given her, in which there was a hidden drawer of which no one knew the secret but herself. This cabinet she had brought with her and had kept all through the summer in a prominent place in the drawing-room, justly deeming that things are generally most safely hidden when placed in the most exposed position, where no one would ever think of looking for them. On returning to New York the cabinet was again packed in one of Totty’s own boxes, but the will was temporarily concealed about her person, to be restored to its hiding-place as soon as she reached the town house.

Before leaving the neighbourhood George felt that it was his duty to apprise Constance and her sister of his departure, but he avoided the necessity of making a visit by writing a letter to Grace. It seemed to him more fitting that he should address his note to her rather than to her sister, considering all that had happened. He urged that both should return to New York before the winter began, and he inserted a civ............