"Papers?" ventured Ida.
"Securities, my dear Miss Ida, securities for a very large amount! The box was full of them; and a little farther off we found another tin case quite as full. They were securities in some of the best and soundest companies, and they are worth an enormous sum of money!"
Ida stared at him, as if she did not realise the significance of his words.
"An enormous sum of money," he repeated. "All the while—God forgive me!—I was under the impression that your father was letting things slide, and was doing nothing to save the estate and to provide for you, he was speculating and investing; and doing it with a skill and a shrewdness which could not have been surpassed by the most astute and business-like of men. His judgment was almost infallible; he seems scarcely ever to have made a mistake. It was one of those extraordinary cases in which everything a man touches turns to gold. There are mining shares there which I would not have bought at a farthing a piece; but your father bought them, and they've everyone of them, or nearly everyone of them, turned up trumps. Some of them which he bought for a few shillings—gold and diamond shares—are worth hundreds of pounds; hundreds? thousands! My dear," he took her hand and patted it as if he were trying to break the shock to her; "your poor father whom we all regarded as an insolvent book-worm, actually died by far and away the richest man in the county!"
Ida looked at him as if she did not even yet quite understand. She passed her thin hand over her brow and drew a long breath.
"Do you mean—do you mean that I am no longer poor, Mr. Wordley?" she asked.
Mr. Wordley laughed so suddenly and loudly that he quite startled the hall porter in his little glass box.
"My dear child," he said, slowly and impressively, "you are rich, not poor; im-mense-ly rich! I do not myself yet quite know how much you are worth; but you may take it from me that it's a very large sum indeed. Now, you are not going to faint, my dear!" For Ida's eyes had closed and her hands had clasped each other spasmodically.
"No, no," she said in a low voice, "But it is so sudden, so unexpected, that I cannot realise it. It seems to me as if I were lying in the cot upstairs and dreaming. No, I cannot realise that I can go back to Herondale: I suppose I can go back?" she asked, with a sudden piteousness that very nearly brought the tears to Mr. Wordley's eyes.
"Go back, my dear!" he exclaimed. "Of course you can go back! The place belongs to you. Why, I've already given notice that I am going to pay off the mortgages. You will get every inch of the land back; you will be the richest lady in the county—yes, in the whole county! The old glories of the dear old house can be revived; you can queen it there as the Herons of old used to queen it. And everybody will be proud and delighted to see you doing it! As for me, I am ashamed to say that I have almost lost my head over the business, and have behaved like a—well, anything but like a staid and sober old solicitor."