"No. At least it had reference, he said, to the Chateau d'Uzerche, or to something that has been found there. To tell the truth, I was thinking of something else when he told me." "Dearest," I said, some minutes later, my arm about her waist, "you remember my telling you I had taken a few of the coins I found in your father's house. Well, yesterday I had them tested. They are not counterfeits. They are genuine." She looked at me curiously. Then, after a pause, she said-- "What made you think they might be counterfeit?" "What made me think so? Seeing that I discovered with them a number of implements, etc, used apparently in the manufacture of base coin, my inference naturally was that the coins must have been false." Still she looked at me. Gradually her expression hardened. "Dick," she said at last, "you are deceiving me. You have deceived me all along. You told me you knew my father's secret. Now you don't know it--do you?" "Indeed you are mistaken, quite mistaken, dearest," I exclaimed quickly. "I know it well enough, but I don't, I admit, know that part of it which bears upon these coins. I never pretended to know that part." It was a wild shot, but I felt I must say something in my defence. I hated deceiving Vera in this way, as, indeed, I should have hated to deceive her in any way, but, playing a part still, I was driven to subterfuge. After all, I had never said I knew her father's secret. She had jumped to the conclusion that I knew it, that day I had found her locked in the upper room in the house in Belgrave Street, and I had not disillusioned her. That was all. The door of the sitting-room opened at that moment, we sprang apart as Faulkner and Violet entered. The pretty girl, in a blue serge coat and skirt, looked radiantly happy, and the happiness she felt seemed to increase her great beauty. I confess I had not before fully realised what a lovely girl she was. "Ah, Dick, my dear fellow," Faulkner exclaimed, grasping me by the hand, "I want you to congratulate me, old chap." "Oh, I do, of course," I said at once. "I congratulate you doubly--on becoming engaged, and on breaking off your engagement." He made a quick little gesture of impatience. "Oh, I don't mean congratulations of that kind," he said quickly. "I shouldn't ask you to waste your time in congratulating me upon anything so commonplace as an engagement of marriage. I want you to congratulate me upon something you don't yet know." "Well, what is it?" I said impatiently. "Have you come into a fortune?" "Right the very first time!" he exclaimed. "Yes, I have. I've inherited, quite unexpectedly, a very large fortune. But the odd thing is this. My benefactor is, or rather was, unknown to me. Until yesterday I had never even heard his name." "How wonderful! But how splendid!" I cried out. "Do tell me more about it. Tell me everything."