“Yes, to you; for under my father-in-law’s will all his property is strictly settled first upon his daughter, my late wife, with a life interest to myself, and then upon my lawful issue. _You_ are my only lawful issue, Joan; and it would seem, therefore, that you are legally entitled to your half-sister’s possessions, though of course, did you take them, it would be an act of robbery, seeing that the man who bequeathed them certainly desired to endow his own descendants and no one else, the difficulty arising from the fact of my marriage with his daughter being an illegal one. I have taken the opinions of four leading lawyers upon the case, giving false names to the parties concerned. Of these, two have advised that you would be entitled to the property, since the law is always strained against illegitimate issue, and two that equity would intervene and declare that her grandfather’s inheritance must come to Emma, as he doubtless intended, although there was an accidental irregularity in the marriage of the mother. “I have told you all this, Joan, as I am telling you everything, because I wish to keep nothing back; but I trust that your generosity and sense of right will never allow you to raise the question, for this money belongs to Emma and to her alone. For you I have done my best out of my savings, and in some few days or weeks you will inherit about four thousand pounds, which will give you a competence independent of your husband.” “You need not be afraid, sir,” answered Joan contemptuously; “I would rather cut my fingers off than touch a farthing of the money to which I have no right at all. I don’t even know that I will accept your legacy.”