When Akira disappeared, the Squire tore up the blue letter and threw the pieces into the fire. He had done with Mara: she was no longer any daughter of his. And, indeed, she never had been. Always cold: always indifferent: a very shadow of what a daughter should have been. He was well rid of her, this traitress, who would have surrendered the emerald. Colpster felt under his sofa pillow and pulled out the gem. It was wrapped in paper, and he unfolded this to gaze at it. A knock at the door made him hastily smuggle it away again. Basil entered immediately and looked worried. "Is it true, uncle, that Akira and Mara are to be married?" he asked abruptly. "Quite true. Akira has brought down a special license. Go with Patricia and see that all is shipshape." "But, Uncle George, surely you don't want Mara to marry a Japanese?" "What does it matter? Whether I give my consent or not, Mara will do what she wants to do. There is some rubbish about reincarnation between them--about loving for seven lives, or for three hundred years. I don't understand these things. But what I do understand," cried Colpster with cold fury, raising himself on his elbow, "is that Mara does not love me, and that I intend to cut her out of my will. Send Jarvis to Hendle and tell Curtis the lawyer to come over at once. You will have the property, Basil, and then can marry Patricia. Theodore can go away. I won't have him in the house after the way he has insulted your future wife. As to Mara, she can go to the devil! or to Japan. I never wish to set eyes on her again!" "But what has she done?" asked Basil, bewildered. The Squire could have told him, but did not intend to, since that would mean revealing that the Mikado Jewel was under the sofa pillow. "Never mind; I am well rid of her, and so are you, and so are we all. Only see that this Japanese marries her properly." Dane argued, implored and stormed, but all to no purpose. His uncle vowed that if Mara remained, he would turn her penniless from the house, and Basil was sufficiently acquainted with his obstinate character to be certain that he would keep his word. Under the circumstances it seemed reasonable that Mara should lie on the bed she had made and the young man, making the best of a bad job, went away to get Patricia. He would act as Akira's best man, and Patricia could follow Mara as her solitary bridesmaid. Whatever might be the outcome of this sudden arrangement, Basil determined to see that the marriage was legal. And when he saw the joy and delight of Mara and the lover-like attentions of Akira, he began to think that his uncle had acted for the best. In the face of Mara's obstinacy, nothing else could be done, although Basil, being a true Englishman, did not relish the Japanese as a cousin-in-law. All the same, he approved of Akira's fine qualities, and knew that from a worldly point of view Mara was making a brilliant match.