Before Lionel had quite made up his mind whether he would attend the funeral or not, there came a second note from Mr. Perrins, more imperative than the first one:—“Your cousin, Mr. Kester St. George, is away on the Continent. I am doubtful whether my notification of your uncle’s death will reach him in time to allow of his being at the funeral. You and he are the late Mr. St. George’s sole relatives, except General St. George, who is in India. If neither you nor your cousin attend the funeral, your uncle will be followed to the grave by no one of his own blood. But that apart, it is highly desirable that, as a near relative of the deceased gentleman, you should be present at the reading of the will, which is fixed to take place in the blue drawing-room at four o’clock on the afternoon of the day of interment.” After this there was nothing left for Lionel but to go. It was not without a strange commingling of various feelings that Lionel Dering found himself under the roof of a house which had been the home of his ancestors for two hundred years. A stately and venerable old pile, truly. He had often heard his mother talk about it, but till this day he had never seen it. It was something to feel proud of, that he was the scion of a family which could call a place like Park Newton its home. He was received by Mr. Perrins with a cordiality that was at once grave and respectful. Kester St. George had not arrived; neither had there been any message from him. They waited till the last possible moment, but he did not come. Thus it happened that Lionel found himself in the novel position of chief mourner at the funeral of a man whom he had never even seen. He was glad when the ceremony was over. Then came the reading of the will. “I wish to goodness my cousin would come, even at this the last moment,” said Lionel to the lawyer as they walked together towards the blue drawing-room. “I don’t really know that it matters greatly,” replied Mr. Perrins with a significant smile. “I dare say we shall get on very well without Mr. Kester St. George.” Ten minutes later Lionel understood the meaning of the lawyer’s strange remark. Ten minutes later he found himself the owner of Park Newton, and the possessor of an income of eleven thousand pounds a year. It was even so. Everything, with the exception of a few trifling legacies to old servants, that Arthur St. George possessed in the world he had bequeathed without reservation to his nephew, Lionel Dering. The name of Kester St. George was not even mentioned in the will. “The Park Newton estates have never been entailed,” said Mr. Perrins in parenthesis, as he folded up the will. “It was quite competent to the testator to have left the whole of his property to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, had he chosen to do so.”