'Hildebrand Hundred' ought to go back to the direct heirs, and it was a choice between you and John Thaneford. Only you were you, and a real Hildebrand besides. So there you are."[Pg 51]

[Pg 51]

"You mean that I must accept, or let everything go to the younger Thaneford?"

"I'm not a lawyer, but I think it would be that way. He is related by blood, and as my father had no children of his own there are no direct heirs."

A sudden thought presented itself. "How would you like it settled?" I asked, audaciously.

"I think that you ought to carry out my father's wishes," she answered, with a simplicity that made me a little ashamed of my disingenuous attempt to inject a purely personal note into the discussion; for the moment I had quite forgotten that this was a house of mourning. Miss Graeme had risen, and I realized that the interview was at an end.

"You will want to go to your room," she said, as we walked out to the entrance hall, our footsteps resounding hollowly upon its marble pavement of alternate white-and-black chequers. She clapped her hands, and a young negro servant presented himself. "Mr. Hildebrand is to have the red room, Marcus," explained Miss Graeme. "Dinner is at seven," she went on. "You won't mind if Eunice and I don't come down. You can have your own meal served in your room, if you prefer."[Pg 52]

[Pg 52]

"But there is Mr. Thaneford," I suggested. "Also Doctor Marcy."

My cousin Betty frowned. "I suppose they are our guests," she admitted, and I experienced an odd thrill at the feeling of intimacy expressed in that little word, "our."

"I think I had better do the honors in the dining room," I went on.

"I wish you would, then." She stopped at the lower step of the staircase, and held out her hand. "Good night, Cousin Hugh."

Now it is possible to shake hands with hundreds and thousands of people, and find it a perfectly uninteresting operation; it may even be a painful one if you happen to be President of the Republic or the hero of the passing hour. But now and then someone comes along whose hand seems to fit, perhaps too fatally well, and that is different. And so when Betty Graeme slid her slim white hand into mine I knew instantly that it belonged there, 

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