Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/229

THE IVORY TOWER "No—it's a letter addressed to me just before his death, handed me by his daughter, to whom he intrusted it, and not likely, I think, to contain money. He was then sure, apparently, of my coming in for money; and even if he hadn't been would have had no ground on earth for leaving me anything."

Horton's visible interest was yet consonant with its waiting a little for expression. "He leaves you the great Rosanna."

Graham, at this, had a stare, followed by a flush as the largest possible sense of it came out. "You suppose it perhaps the expression of a wish?" And then as Horton forebore at first as to what he supposed: "A wish that I may find confidence to apply to his daughter for her hand?"

"That hasn't occurred to you before?" Horton asked—"nor the measure of the confidence suggested been given you by the fact of your receiving the document from Rosanna herself? You do give me, you extraordinary person," he gaily proceeded, "as good opportunities as I could possibly desire to 'help' you!"

Graham, for all the felicity of this, needed but an instant to think. "I have it from Miss Gaw herself that she hasn't an idea of what the letter contains—any more than she has the least desire that I shall for the present open it."

"Well, mayn't that very attitude in her rather point to a suspicion?" was his guest's ingenious 215