When at last she slit the envelope she found that it was no tradesman’s bill, as she had imagined, but a letter from Glyn Peterson’s family solicitor, announcing, in the stiff phraseology without which no lawyer seems able to express himself, the sudden death of her father.
Jean sat down abruptly, her legs seeming all at once to give way under her. She could not grasp it—could not realise that the witty, charming personality which, after all, in spite of Peterson’s lack of the more conventional paternal attributes, had meant a great deal to her, had been swept without warning out of her life for ever.
Glyn Peterson had, it seemed, died very suddenly, in a remote corner of Africa whither his restless wanderings had led him, and it had been some weeks before the news of his death had reached his lawyer, who had immediately communicated it to Jean.
By his will, everything he possessed, except for a certain sum set aside to cover a few legacies to old and valued servants, was left to Jean, and with the quaint whimsicality which was characteristic of him he had particularly mentioned: “Beirnfels, the House of Dreams-Come-True.”
The little phrase, with its suggestion of joyous consummation, stabbed her with a sharp thrill of pain. Greeting her, as it did, at the moment when all her hopes of happiness were lying trampled beneath the iron heel of hostile destiny, it seemed to add a last touch of irony to the bitterness of the burden she had to bear.
The House of Dreams-Come-True! In the solicitude and silence of her room Jean laughed out loud at the mockery of it! But her breath caught in her throat, sobbingly, and then quite suddenly the merciful, healing tears began to fall, and, laying her head down on her arms, she cried unrestrainedly.
CHAPTER XXXIV—THE TEST
NEW YEAR’S EYE found Jean sitting alone in Claire’s special sanctum—the room which had witnessed that frightful scene when Sir Adrian had suddenly gone mad.