“Jean”--Claire’s hand crept further along the other’s arm and the kind little fingers sought and clasped Jean’s own--“if you knew how miserable I am about you! It makes me feel wicked--disgustingly selfish and wicked!--to be so happy myself when you have so much to bear.” There were tears in her voice, and Jean squeezed her hand reassuringly. “My dear,” she said earnestly, “you had your black years if anyone ever had! If a woman ever deserved her happiness at last, you do.... I suppose we all get our share of trouble in this world,” she went on thoughtfully. “I remember the first time I ever met Blaise--that day at Montavan, you know--he said that Destiny, with her snuffers, came to most of us sooner or later and snuffed out our light of happiness. Well”--rather drearily--“I suppose it’s my turn now and she’s come to me. That’s all.” A little wind blew up from the valley, chill and complaining. Autumn had the world at her mercy now, and a grey mist was rising from the sodden fields, soaked by the continual rains of the preceding fortnight. Claire shivered. “Let’s go in,” she said. “It’s growing too cold to stay out any longer. Besides, it’s depressing. Grey skies, bare branches--Oh! How I detest the autumn!” They turned and retraced their steps to the house. As they entered by way of the front door, they caught a glimpse of the postman making his way briskly down the drive. A solitary letter lay upon the hall table, addressed to Jean in a rather flourishy copper-plate style of writing. “A bill, I suppose!” she commented indifferently. She picked it up carelessly, carrying it unopened to her room. Nor did she open it immediately upon arriving there, stopping first to remove her hat and coat. When at last she slit the envelope she found that it was no tradesman’s bill, as she had imagined, but a letter from Glyn Peterson’s family solicitor, announcing, in the stiff phraseology without which no lawyer seems able to express himself, the sudden death of her father. Jean sat down abruptly, her legs seeming all at once to give way under her. She could not grasp it--could not realise that the witty, charming personality which, after all, in spite of Peterson’s lack of the more conventional paternal attributes, had meant a great deal to her, had been swept without warning out of her life for ever. Glyn Peterson had, it seemed, died very suddenly, in a remote corner of Africa whither his restless wanderings had led him, and it had been some weeks before the news of his death had reached his lawyer, who had immediately communicated it to Jean. By his will, everything he possessed, except for a certain sum set aside to cover a few legacies to old and valued servants, was left to Jean, and with the quaint whimsicality which was characteristic of him he had particularly mentioned: “_Beirnfels, the House of Dreams-Come-True_.”