“Do be kind enough to raise this parasol for me,” said Miss Joscelyn. “The sun is positively blinding.”
Kyrle raised the parasol, and, accepting his fate, assisted her into the waiting gondola. But then, instead of following, he stepped back, and, lifting his hat quietly, bade the party adieu “until to-morrow.”
“You will not join us this afternoon?” inquired Lydia, with some surprise and evident concern.
“I am sorry that I can not have that pleasure,” he answered. “I have a budget of correspondence to read, and another budget to dispatch.”
“Then we will defer the excursion to Murano till to-morrow,” said she, positively.
Kyrle did not answer, but watched the gondola, as it moved away, with a very grave face. The moment of temptation had come now in earnest. Ought he to think of himself and his own pride, when it was a question of rescuing the fair and gentle creature who had won his heart from such a bondage as that which Fanny described? If it were true that by a singular chance he had been enabled to approach her more nearly than any other man had ever approached her, or was likely in the future to do, did it not seem as if Fate pointed him out as her rescuer? Yet, for him, by comparison a poor man, to woo so rich a woman, to meet the insults of her friends, and bear the brand of a fortune-hunter in the eyes of the world—that was a bitter necessity to face; and, revolving it in his mind, he went slowly home.
He had been strictly within the limit of the truth when he told Miss Joscelyn that he had a budget of correspondence to read, for the accumulation of several weeks had reached him only that morning, and he had not taken time to wade through it before going out. After a light déjeuner, he set himself to the task, partly because it was a necessity, and partly to distract his mind from the question which he was constantly asking and altogether unable to answer.
So, after going through several letters with a very distracted attention, he took up and opened one which was addressed in a strange handwriting and bore the stamp of a legal firm. “How can I—I, who have nothing!” was the refrain echoing through his brain as he broke the seal. But a minute later he uttered a great exclamation, and sat staring incredulously at the paper before him.
Instead of having nothing, this letter informed him that he possessed a fortune of not less than a million and a half dollars.