Deringham slightly accentuated part of the sentence, and again a faint tinge of colour crept into the face of the girl and vindictiveness into her eyes, for she understood him.  The man who had on his deathbed bequeathed Carnaby to his grandson had driven out the young man’s father years ago, and approaching dissolution had possibly somewhat clouded his faculties when he made the will.  Deringham, who had married into the Alton family, and figured as a legatee, was, with the exception of the disinherited, the nearest of kin, and it had been generally expected that Carnaby would fall to his daughter; but perhaps in an endeavour to treat both sides fairly, its dying owner had, in the face of his lawyer’s protests, inserted one clause which, for financial reasons, rendered a second union between the houses of Alton and Deringham distinctly advisable.  There was, however, a high spirit in the girl, and she looked at her father steadily.

“But you were left the money, or most of it?” she said.

“Yes,” said Deringham grimly.  “I was left the money.”

The girl asked nothing further, for there was something in the man’s face which warned her not to press that subject.  She knew that her father had long acted as financial adviser to the late owner of Carnaby, but it was not astonishing that Deringham had not told her he had exceeded the discretion allowed him, and been singularly unfortunate in his speculations.

She rose, and a man who like themselves had finished his meal leisurely followed them outside into the verandah.  He smiled as he drew out a chair for the girl, and then sat down opposite her father with a card in his hand.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Deringham.  I’ll introduce myself,” said he.

Deringham took the card handed him, and glanced with an air of quiet indifference at the stranger, while his daughter looked apparently straight past him towards the climbing pines.  Nevertheless, she had seen the man, and was not pleased with him.  He had a somewhat fleshy face, beady black eyes with a boldness in them that was more akin to insolence than courage, and a full-lipped, mobile mouth.  His dress was correct enough, though he wore a somewhat ample ring with a diamond in it, and his watchchain was too heavy and prominent, but there was a suggestion of coarseness about him.  Her father, leaning forward in his chair with an air of languid curiosity, the card in his slender fingers, appeared his antithesis, and yet the girl fancied there was a resemblance in the expression of the two faces.  She also felt her dislike for the stranger increased when she saw for the first time the look of greed and cunning in his face reflected in that of her father.  She had hitherto only pictured him as a skilful financier, but now she saw qualities she had never suspected in him revealed as by a daring caricature.

“Willard Hallam,” Deringham read aloud.  “Hallam and Vose.  Land and mining agents.  Advances made on mineral claims.”