“DEAR MISS MASSARENE.--_I could not tell you how grieved I have been at the appalling tragedy. I have thought so much of you in your bereavement, and of your poor mother. If I had not suffered from bronchitis I should have come in person to the funeral. I hope your mother received my note? It is all so dreadful and sudden one cannot realize it. Did my kind good friend leave no letter or message for me? You know how I trusted him in all my affairs, and the loss of his experience and his advice is to me an immeasurable misfortune. He was so wonderfully clever, and so willing to counsel and to aid! His loss can never be made up to any of us. In sincere sympathy I remain_, “_Ever yours affectionately_, “CLARE OTTERBOURNE.” Katherine read the note twice over. She profoundly mistrusted the writer. It read very naturally, very unaffectedly; but it was wholly impossible that the writer could be sincere. She was about to reply and say that her father had left a letter for Hurstmanceaux; but on second thoughts she doubted if she had a right to do so; the matter belonged to the person to whom the letter was addressed, who would tell his sister of its contents or not, as he chose. She wrote, instead, a few brief polite distant words saying that she had as yet found no communication for the Duchess amongst her father’s papers, and thanking her for her expressions of sorrow and sympathy. “Why should she expect any remembrance from him?” she wondered. “Did she expect to be named in his will?” She felt regret that Hurstmanceaux was out of town. She thought his sister quite capable of going to Bruton Street and intercepting the letter if she got wind of it. Perhaps, she thought, there was money in it; it had borne a large seal, bearing the newly-found arms of the Massarenes. “Did my father ever speak to you of the Duchess of Otterbourne?” she asked his solicitor that afternoon. “Never!” said the lawyer, with a passing smile. “Did you ever hear that he helped her in monetary affairs?” “No,” said the solicitor, with the same demure suggestive smile hovering on his lips. “But everyone knows that Mr. Massarene was a great admirer of that lady.” Katherine asked him no more. She lighted a match and burnt the sympathetic little note.