Bertha Forbes caught the whisper. "She may be obliged to go," she said curtly. "You must leave her for the present, young man, in my care. Communicate with your London lawyers and find out the particulars. Your plans for Jane's future are so extremely recent that they will bear deferring a bit, I fancy." When John Everett went away at last, after bidding his sweetheart good night under the coldly impersonal eyes of Miss Forbes, he walked on air. And for exactly six days thereafter he was the happiest man on earth. On the seventh day arrived a cablegram from Messrs. Thorn, Nagle & Noyes, which read as follows: "Return Aubrey-Blythe next steamer. Sole heir to uncle's estate." Jane shook her head when she heard this. "Impossible," she said at first. "I have no uncle except Uncle Robert." Later she recalled the dim memory of a younger brother, one Foxhall Aubrey-Blythe, a wild scapegrace of a fellow, who had been bred to the army, sent to South Africa in the Zulu wars, and lost sight of by his family. "It was thought," she said soberly, "that he was killed, though his death was never reported in the despatches. He was officially starred and labeled 'missing'." "He has evidently turned up again," said John Everett gloomily. "That is to say, he has been heard of again as rich and dead; and you are his heiress." "It may not be much," said Jane Blythe thoughtfully. "I suppose," she added, "that I must go back to England. But I shall not stay there." Then she looked at John Everett. He was staring sternly at the toe of his boot, a most unhappy expression clouding his handsome face. "You--don't like it--John?" she faltered, with an adorable little quaver in her clear voice. He avoided her eyes. "I--ought not to have spoken to you as I did that night," he said at last. "Jane, I don't know what you will think of me. I--knew that the inquiry had been set on foot when I rushed out after you. I meant to have told you--_that_. But when I saw you--" He paused to groan aloud, then went on hurriedly: "I forgot all about that confounded letter from Thorn, Nagle & Noyes; I forgot everything except that I had found you. I was so sorry for you, dear, and so angry with my sister, and--well, I've come to the conclusion that I made a confounded fool of myself, Jane. Can you--can you forgive me?" Jane's happy face had paled during this halting monologue. "I'm afraid I don't--understand," she said in a low voice. "Do you--mean that you are sorry you--told me----" "I ought to have waited," he said doggedly. "And if you had--waited?" she asked breathlessly. He raised his unhappy eyes to hers. "If you had gone back to England free and rich you would have been glad to forget America and all your unhappy experiences here; wouldn't you, Jane? Why, when I think that I have actually sat still and allowed you to hand me my coffee of a morning I--I hate myself!"