“She has made this house over to Winnie as a bridal gift. And every dollar of her husband’s legacy she has set aside for Daisy Warburton.”
“I’m glad of it,” blurted out Stanhope; and then he colored hotly and bit his lips.
When Alan and his fair little bride were installed as master and mistress of Warburton Place, Leslie and her father received their friends in a new home. It was not so large as the mansion Leslie had “abdicated;” not so grand and stately; but it was elegant, dainty, homelike.
“It suits me better,” said Leslie to Stanhope. “The other was too grand. Winnie can throw upon her mother the burden of its stateliness, and Mrs. French will make a charming dowager. I am going to leave my past behind in the old home; and begin a new life in this.”
“Are you going to leave me behind, with the rest of your past?” he asked.
“No,” she said smilingly, “you have not lost your value; and if I should turn you out, fresh troubles would arise. I should have to contend with Daisy, and Papa too.”
And indeed Daisy had given him a prominent place in her affections.
“Some of my friends,” he said after a pause, “are advising me to abandon the Agency, and embark in some quieter enterprise.”
“Do you mean that they wish you to give up your profession? to cease to be a detective?”
“Yes.”