“I must say that Arthur took it very well,” said Miss Wenner as she assisted the girl to dress. “It was naturally a great blow to him.”

“What was?” Leslie was a little dazed.

“My engagement,” said Mary. “You didn’t know.” She sighed. “Arthur was very fond of me, I’ll admit it. But in the circumstances I don’t think it would be nice to marry a gentleman who’s bad friends with my fiancé; do you, Leslie?”

“I had no idea that there was anything between Arthur and you,” said Leslie truthfully.

Again Miss Wenner sighed.

“Very few people knew anything about it. Perhaps it is all for the best. Arthur thinks so. It isn’t as though I’d thrown myself at him, so there’s no harm done one way or the other.”

Leslie was wearing a pair of men’s slippers when she came down the broad stairs. Dick’s study door was open, and she saw him sitting in a deep cane chair on the lawn outside, a pipe between his teeth, a heap of documents on his knees which he was examining slowly one by one. He looked round, rising from his chair at the sound of her voice. She saw his face and was shocked.

“Dick, you look a hundred years old!”

“I feel a thousand,” he said, and guided her to the chair. “Sit down. Well, that’s the end, Leslie – and the beginning.”

She nodded.

“I think we’ve managed to keep the ugliest part of it out of the newspapers. Poor old Harry!” There were tears in his eyes which he did not attempt to hide. “Poor old victim!”

“Victim of what?”

“Of his mother,” said Dick. “There never was a time when she was sane. My poor father did not discover this until after the child was born, and her death removed one of the greatest sorrows from his life. The other was – Harry! Well, now you know the secrets of us all, what do you think, Leslie?”

“Who was the Black Abbot?” she asked, and then, to her amazement:

“I was,” he replied quietly, and told her all he had told Gilder.

“The queer thing was that he must have seen the gold before he died. What fools we were! The diary told us as plainly as anything could that the old Lord Chelford who hid his treasure chose the bed of the river. It was a year of drought, the river was quite dry, and probably he found a deep hole in its bed, hid the gold and covered it with shingle that would not wash away.”

“You are very rich now, Dick?”

He nodded slowly.

“Yes – I suppose I am. There are a few minor trials and troubles for us, Leslie dear,” he said, “but when those are all over and everything is settled we will go abroad for a year and forget all about these ghastly days and nights.”