“Who is the fellow, then?” asked the old man after a considerable pause. “I hope he got all this in an honest fashion. Five millions in jewels, you say. Good gracious me! Ready to give it away, too, but afraid of pauperising any one. You can tell him, Robert, that you know of one very deserving case which has not the slightest objection to being pauperised.”
“But who can he possibly be, Robert?” cried Laura. “Haw cannot be his real name. He must be some disguised prince, or perhaps a king in exile. Oh, I should have loved to have seen those diamonds and the emeralds! I always think that emeralds suit dark people best. You must tell me again all about that museum, Robert.”
“I don't think that he is anything more than he pretends to be,” her brother answered. “He has the plain, quiet manners of an ordinary middle-class Englishman. There was no particular polish that I could see. He knew a little about books and pictures, just enough to appreciate them, but nothing more. No, I fancy that he is a man quite in our own position of life, who has in some way inherited a vast sum. Of course it is difficult for me to form an estimate, but I should judge that what I saw to-day—house, pictures, jewels, books, and so on—could never have been bought under twenty millions, and I am sure that that figure is entirely an under-statement.”
“I never knew but one Haw,” said old McIntyre, drumming his fingers on the table; “he was a foreman in my pin-fire cartridge-case department. But he was an elderly single man. Well, I hope he got it all honestly. I hope the money is clean.”
“And really, really, he is coming to see us!” cried Laura, clapping her hands. “Oh, when do you think he will come, Robert? Do give me warning. Do you think it will be to-morrow?”
“I am sure I cannot say.”
“I should so love to see him. I don't know when I have been so interested.”
“Why, you have a letter there,” remarked Robert. “From Hector, too, by the foreign stamp. How is he?”
“It only came this evening. I have not opened it yet. To tell the truth, I have been so interested in your story that I had forgotten all about it. Poor old Hector! It is from Madeira.” She glanced rapidly over the four pages of straggling writing in the young sailor's bold schoolboyish hand. “Oh, he is all right,” she said. “They had a gale on the way out, and that sort of thing, but he is all right now. He thinks he may be back by March. I wonder whether your new friend will come to-morrow—your knight of the enchanted Castle.”
“Hardly so soon, I should fancy.”