"I have one of my people down in Southend just now, trying if he can trace anything about a woman and her child who, we believe, lived there eighteen years ago. If we find her, a curious story will come out. But I never in the whole course of my life heard of any woman, except Miss Napier, who refused a title and a fortune, which were by right her own. I suppose the common-sense of actresses gets poisoned by the romantic sentiment in which they live and breathe." "If you mean as regards money," said the Count, with a patronising smile, "I can assure you that most actresses have an uncommonly small proportion of sentiment and a very tolerable share of sense. Miss Brunel’s mother must have been an extraordinary woman in many respects—what you and I would consider a fool, though many people would give her folly a fine name. Now, about revealing this secret, to Miss Brunel, don’t you think some of the Marquis’s relatives might do that?" "They would cut their fingers off first," said John Hubbard, with nervous decision. "They knew every action of her mother after she left this country—so old Mr. Cayley told me; they now watch her daughter closely, and try to discover everything they can about her; and their intensest hope is that she may never learn what a splendid property lies at her command, so that it may revert to them or their heirs, as the will directs. And what a property it is, Fred!" "Ah! I suppose so," said the Count, with a sigh. To do him justice, he did not consider so much as another might have done the money he would get by marrying Miss Brunel: his desire to marry her was wholly selfish, but the selfishness was begotten of no greed of money. "The trustees are as diligent in looking after the property as though it were to be given up to-morrow. And how those rents accumulate! It was Lord Belsford who proposed to use up some of the money in buying off the mortgages which still hung over the Northamptonshire estate from the time of the Marquis’s father; and now that has been done, it is nothing but a huge machine turning out money for nobody’s use." The little nervous lawyer seemed to be quite overwhelmed by the contemplation of such a thing. If _he_ had had the option of becoming the proprietor of this valuable coining machine, he would not have allowed the opportunity to pass. And even now it occurred to him that in the event of his brother marrying Miss Brunel, and acquiring this vast wealth, the Count might, out of gratitude for the service done him in the matter, leave his thirty thousand pounds a year to the young gentleman in the adjoining drawing-room. The alternative was possible, but it was remote; John Hubbard would vastly have preferred his brother remaining unmarried. "You know why I am so anxious to know all about this matter, Jack," said the Count, uneasily. His brother nodded.