“Rather depressed,” Hannah replied. “Her Ladyship had a little weep after luncheon when we talked about your father. She thinks perhaps he’ll never come home, since it’s nearly a week now since his three years were over.”

“Is it really that?” Thalia asked. “I suppose I had lost count.”

Then she told herself that she had good tidings for her mother. After all she need not explain in what context she had heard it, but at least she could say that her father was alive, well and had been seen in America.

“I have news for Mama,” she said with a lilt in her voice. “She will not be depressed tonight when she hears what I have to tell her.”

“News?” Hannah questioned instinctively walking quicker.

“I must first tell it to Mama,” Thalia said.

Hannah opened the door and she ran upstairs.

Lady Caversham was lying on the chaise longue as usual.

“There you are, my dearest!” she exclaimed. “I have been lying here reading your book and thinking how amusing it is. I had no idea that I had such a clever daughter.”

“That is what I wanted you to say, Mama,” Thalia answered, “and I have something to tell you – something you have been waiting to hear.”

She saw the sudden alertness in her mother’s eyes and then, even as she opened her lips to speak, she heard Hannah’s voice sounding curiously like a scream downstairs.

Lady Caversham was startled.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I will go and see,” Thalia replied.

Even as she turned, she heard a man’s voice answering Hannah and footsteps coming up the stairs.

For a moment she could hardly believe it was true, then she gave a cry that seemed to echo and re-echo around the room.

“It’s Papa! I know it’s Papa!”

“So you were expecting me,” Sir Denzil smiled.

Then he was in the room, looking for his wife and a second later she was in his arms.

“Papa, how could you arrive just when you are wanted most?” Thalia asked.

He could not answer her, but, as she kissed his cheek, he put his arm round her and held her as close to him as he could.

Lady Caversham was crying helplessly against his shoulder.

“It’s all right, my darling, I am back. Everything is going to be all right now with no more worries and no more troubles. How could I have guessed, how could I have known, that you would not have enough money?”

“It does not matter,” Lady Caversham sobbed, “but I thought you might be dead!”

“Dead!” Sir Denzil cried. “I am very much alive! Listen, my precious! Listen, Thalia! I am rich! Immensely, enormously rich!”

Thalia moved in his arms to stare at him.

“Rich, Papa?”

“A millionaire several times over.”

“But, how? How is it possible?”