"Chateau, indeed!" Mrs. Sheldon exclaimed peevishly. "The idea of Diana Paget, without a sixpence, and with a regular scamp of a father, marrying a man with a chateau, while my poor Charlotte--! I don't wish to wound your feelings, Mr. Hawkehurst, but it really does seem hard." "It is hard that Lotta should not have married a prince--all the grandeurs of a prince in a fairy tale would only be her due; but it happens fortunately, you see, dear Mrs. Sheldon, that our sweet girl has simple tastes, and does not languish for jewels or palaces. If she should ever become rich--" "Ah," sighed, Georgy despondently, "I don't expect that. I can't understand anything about this idea of a fine fortune that Mr. Sheldon had got into his head. I know that my husband's mother was a Miss Meynell, the daughter of a carpet-warehouseman in the city, and I can't see how any grand fortune is to come to Charlotte through her. And as for the Hallidays--Hyley and Newhall farms were all the property they ever owned within the memory of man." "The fortune for which Charlotte is a claimant comes from the maternal ancestor of Christian Meynell. I do not count upon her possession of it as a certain good in the future. If it comes we will be thankful." "Is it a very large sum of money?" "Well, yes; I believe it is a considerable sum." "Twenty thousand pounds, perhaps?" "I have been told that it is as much." He did not want Georgy's weak mind to become possessed of the idea of shadowy wealth. He remembered what Philip Sheldon had said to him on the Christmas night in which they had paced the little Bayswater garden together, and he felt that there was a substratum of common sense in that scoundrel's artful warning. CHAPTER III. GREEK AGAINST GREEK. Valentine Hawkehurst called upon Mr. Greenwood, of the firm of Greenwood and Greenwood, within a week of his marriage, and exhibited the certificate to that gentleman. Mr. Greenwood received the information with much solemnity, and even severity, of manner. "Are you aware that this is a very serious step which you have taken, Mr. Hawkehurst?" he demanded, sternly. "You entrap--that is to say, you persuade a lady into a hasty marriage--without consultation with her legal advisers, without settlements of any kind whatever--while at the same time you are aware that the lady in question is heir-at-law to a very large fortune, proceedings for the recovery of which are now pending. Pardon me if I observe that there is a want of delicacy--of--a--hem--right-mindedness in the transaction."