“Plenty of money?” he said, at last.

“One of the richest heiresses in England.”

“Are you sure of that?” said Braham; “or has some foreign countess got hold of you again?”

“Sure? Yes!” cried Maudlaine, excitedly. “The father has been living out of England for years past at the rate of a couple of thousand a year, and his income’s at least twenty. All been increasing and piling up ever since.”

The Jew again looked piercingly at the young man; but it was plain enough that the ability was not in him to invent this as a fiction upon the spur of the moment.

“Well,” said the interlocutor, “go on. Have you any chance?”

“Yes; of course I have,” said Maudlaine.

“Father agreeable?”

“Yes!”

“Lady?”