"I will explain it to you in a few words. My father was a harum-scarum sort of person, as I told you last time you were here, hard-riding and hard-drinking. When he was a boy of twenty-five he married a woman out of his own class, a shop-girl or a barmaid, I am not quite sure which. George is many years older than myself, as I told you he is really my halfbrother. The first wife died, my father married again, this time a lady. I am the daughter of the second marriage. Now, I think you understand." Pomfret was delighted at this avowal, it proved his own prescience. "I am so glad you told me, but as it happens, it was just what I guessed." Miss Burton looked at him with admiring eyes. "You are really very clever, you know. Well, I will not exactly say this is a secret, but you will whisper it about discreetly. You need not be quite so frank as I have been about details, but you can hint at a _mésalliance_. I hate to have to tell you so much, for my brother has been so good to me." "Ah!" Mr. Pomfret's air plainly showed that he was eager for further information. And Miss Burton was quite willing to gratify him. The young man was a pleasant, comfortable sort of person to talk to. He was an admirable listener, and never broke in with unnecessary, or irritating interruptions. "When my father died he left little behind him but debts; my mother had preceded him some ten years. Poor George had gone into a stockbroker's office, through the good offices of a distant connection. His salary was very small, but he made a home for me. He would not hear of my earning my own living." "That could not have been very long ago," remarked Pomfret, "because you are not very old now." "No, it was not long," answered the girl, not committing herself to any definite dates. "Well, we had a very hard time, as you can imagine. Then suddenly our luck changed. An uncle of George's on his mother's side had gone out to Australia as a boy, and amassed, we won't say a fortune from your point of view, but what we should look upon as wealth. He had never married, and when he died, a will was found in which he left all he was possessed of to his sister's children. George was the only child, so he took it all." "So he threw up business and went in for a country life." "Well, he has thrown it up for a time. I am not quite certain he will not get tired of inactivity, and go back to it. Now that he has capital, it would be easy for him to embark in something that would keep him occupied, and pay him well." "Not a sportsman, I suppose, he doesn't care for hunting or shooting? The country is slow for a man if he doesn't do something in that line." The pretty girl smiled; there was a faint touch of humour in the smile. "Oh, he's not rich enough to indulge in luxuries of that sort. Besides," she added hastily, "he has such wretched sight, he would be no good at sport."