“I protested against it at the time. I simply cannot comprehend it now. It is almost impossible to imagine that in present circumstances he could have intended it to stand; but here it is, and nothing else. Miss Tredgold, by this will the whole of your father’s property is left over your head to your younger sister.” “To Stella!” she cried, with a sudden glow of pleasure, clapping her hands. The men about sat and stared at her, Mr. Turny in such consternation that his jaw dropped as he gazed. Bob Tredgold was by this time beyond speech, glaring into empty space over the bag in his arms. Then something, whether in her mind or out of it, suggested by the faces round her struck Katherine with a little chill. She looked round upon them again, and she was dimly aware that someone behind her, who could only be Dr. Burnet, made a step forward and stood behind her chair. Then she drew a long breath. “I am not sure that I understand yet. I am glad Stella has it--oh, very glad! But do you mean that I--am left out? Do you mean---- I am afraid,” she said, after a pause, with a little gasp, “that is not quite just. Do you mean really everything--_every_thing, Mr. Sturgeon?” “Everything. There is, of course, your mother’s money, which no one can touch, and there is a small piece of land--to build yourself a cottage on, which was all you would want, he said.” Katherine sat silent a little after this. Her first thought was that she was balked then altogether in her first personal wish, the great delight and triumph of setting Stella right and restoring to her her just share in the inheritance. This great disappointment struck her at once, and almost brought the tears to her eyes. Stella would now have it all of her own right, and would never know, or at least believe, what had been Katherine’s loving intention. She felt this blow. In a moment she realised that Stella would not believe it--that she would think any assertion to that effect to be a figment, and remained fully assured that her sister would have kept everything to herself if she had had the power. And this hurt Katherine beyond expression. She would have liked to have had that power! Afterwards there came into her mind a vague sense of old injustice and unkindness to herself, the contemptuous speech about the cottage, and that this was all she would want. Her father thought so; he had thought so always, and so had Stella. It never occurred to Katherine that Stella would be anxious to do her justice, as she would have done to Stella. That was an idea that never entered her mind at all. She was thrown back eight years ago to the time when she lived habitually in the cold shade. After all, was not that the one thing that she had been certain of all her life? Was it not a spell which had never been broken, which never could be broken? She murmured to herself dully: “A cottage--which was all I should want.”