"A coal-miner," he explained briefly. "He was honest and kind-hearted--and I took him for my example. He left me no heirlooms that--"

I turned away, looking at the room's furnishings with a feeling of reckless contempt.

"Heirlooms are--are a nuisance to keep dusted!" I declared quickly.

"Yet you evidently like them," he said, as we took our places again before the fire, and the little maid, in her nervous haste, made an unnecessary number of trips in and out. The firelight was glowing ruddily over the silver things on the tea-table, and looking up, I caught his eyes resting upon the ring I wore--Guilford's scarab. "That ring is likely an heirloom?"

"Yes--the story goes that Mariette himself found it," I elucidated, slipping the priceless old bit of stone off my hand and handing it to him to examine.

But as I talked my head was buzzing, for grandfather was at one ear and Uncle Lancelot was at the other.

"Grace, you ought to tell him!" grandfather commanded sharply. "Tell him this minute! Say to him: 'This ring is an heirloom in the family of my betrothed.'"

"_Rot_, parson!" came in Uncle Lancelot's dear comforting tones.

"Shall a young woman take it for granted that every man who admires the color of her eyes is interested in her entire history?--Why, it would be absolutely indelicate of Grace to tell this man that she's engaged. It's simply none of his business."

"You'll see! You'll see!" grandfather warned--and my heart sank, for when a member of your family warns you that you'll see, the sad part of it is that you _will_ see.

"It's a royal scarab, isn't it?" Maitland Tait asked, turning the ancient beetle over and viewing the inscription on the flat side.

"Yes--perhaps--oh, I don't know, I'm sure," I answered in a bewildered fashion. Then suddenly I demanded: "But what else did Mrs. Walker tell you? Surely she didn't leave off with the mention of one ill.u.s.trious member of my family."

"She told me about your great-aunt--the queer old lady who left James Christie's relics to you because you were the only member of the family who didn't keep a black bonnet in readiness for her funeral,"

he laughed, as he handed me back the ring.

"They were just a batch of letters," I corrected, "not any other relics."

"Yes--the letters written by Lady Frances Webb," he said.

It was my turn to laugh.

"I knew that Mrs. Walker must have been talkative," I declared. "She didn't tell you the latest touch of romance in connection with those letters, did she?"

He was looking into the fire, with an expression of deep thoughtfulness; and I studied his profile for a moment.

"Late romance?" he asked in a puzzled fashion, as he turned to me.

"A publishing company has made me an offer to publish those letters!

To make them into a stunning 'best-seller,' with a miniature portrait of Lady Frances Webb, as frontispiece, I dare say, and the oftenest-divorced ill.u.s.trator in America to furnish pictures of Colmere Abbey, with the lovers mooning 'by Norman stone!'"

He was silent for a little while.

"No, she didn't tell me this," he finally answered.

"Then it is because she doesn't know it!" I explained. "You see, mother is still too grieved to mention the matter to any one by telephone--and it happens that she hasn't met Mrs. Walker face to face since the offer was made."

"And--rejected?" he asked, with a little smile.

"Yes, but how did you know?"

The smile sobered.

"There are some things one _knows_," he answered. "Yet, after all, what are you going to do with the letters? If you don't publish them now how are you going to be sure that some other--some future possessor will not?"

"I can't be sure--that's the reason I'm not going to run any risks," I told him. "I'm going to burn them."

He started.

"But that would be rather a pity, wouldn't it?" he asked. "She was such a noted writer that I imagine her letters are full of literary value."

"It would be a cold-blooded thing for _me_ to do," I said thoughtfully. "I've an idea that some day I'll take them back to England and--and burn them there."

"A sort of feeling that they'd enjoy being buried on their native soil?" he asked.

"I'll take them to Colmere Abbey--her old home," I explained. "To me the place has always been a house of dreams! She describes portions of the gardens in her letters--tells him of new flower-beds made, of new walls built--of the sun-dial. I have always wanted to go there, and some day I shall bundle all these letters up and pack them in the bottom of a steamer trunk--to have a big bonfire with them on the very same hearth where she burned his."

CHAPTER X

IN THE FIRELIGHT

Again there was a silence, but it was not the kind of silence that gives consent. On the other hand his look of severity was positively discouraging.

"If I may inquire, what do you know about this place--this Colmere Abbey?" he finally asked. "I mean, do you know anything of it in this century--whether it's still standing or not--or anything at all save what your imagination pictures?"

It was a rather lawyer-like query, and I shook my head, feeling somewhat nonplused.

"No--nothing!"

"Then, if you should go to England, how would you set about finding out?"

"Oh, that wouldn't be so bad. In fact, I believe it would be a unique experience to go journeying to a spot with nothing more recent than a Washington Irving sketch as guide-book."

He looked at me half pityingly.

"You might be disappointed," he said gently. "For my part, I have never taken up a moment's time mooning about people's ancestral estates--I've had too much real work to do--but I happen to know that residents often fight shy of tourists."

I had a feeling of ruffled dignity.

"Of course--tourists!" I answered, bridling a little.

"Because," he hastened to explain, "the owners of the places can so often afford to live at home only a short season every year. Many of them are poor, and the places they own are mortgaged to the turrets."

"And the shut-up dilapidation would not make pleasant sight-seeing for rich Americans?"

He nodded.