“Yes.”
“Mr. Davenant has told you that your father was engaged in some enterprise with this wonderful Mr. Scarlett Trent, when he died.”
“Yes! He told me that!”
“Well, I have had a visit just recently from that gentleman. It seems that your father when he was dying spoke of his daughter in England, and Mr. Trent is very anxious now to find you out, and speaks of a large sum of money which he wishes to invest in your name.”
“He has been a long time thinking about it,” Ernestine remarked.
“He explained that,” Mr. Cuthbert continued, “in this way. Your father gave him our address when he was dying, but the envelope on which it was written got mislaid, and he only came across it a day or two ago. He came to see me at once, and he seems prepared to act very handsomely. He pressed very hard indeed for your name and address, but I did not feel at liberty to disclose them before seeing you.”
“You were quite right, Mr. Cuthbert,” she answered. “I suppose this is the reason why Mr. Davenant has just told me the whole miserable story.”
“It is one reason,” he admitted, “but in any case I think that Mr. Davenant had made up his mind that you should know.”
“Mr. Trent, I suppose, talks of this money as a present to me?”
“He did not speak of it in that way,” Mr. Cuthbert answered, “but in a sense that is, of course, what it amounts to. At the same time I should like to say that under the peculiar circumstances of the case I should consider you altogether justified in accepting it.”