"And Rita," he muttered, "she knows nothing at all about any of it. I don't know that I am sorry. She will have all the pleasure of learning all she needs to know, and she won't have anything to unlearn. I wish I could forget some things as completely as she seems to have done. I hope a good many of them will never come back to her at all."
No doubt it was very interesting, and Steve looked up from his own reading to see how completely absorbed Murray had become.
Still, it must have been a remarkable news item that could make a man of steady nerves bound suddenly to his feet and hold that magazine out at arm's length.
"Why, Murray," said Steve, "what can be the matter?"
"Matter? My dear boy! Read that! Rita is an heiress."
"What?"
He might well have been half afraid his friend had lost his wits, but he took the "talking leaves" held out to him, and read the few lines to which the finger of Murray was pointing:
"The great English estate of Cranston Hall, with a baronetcy, is waiting for an heir. The late baronet left no children, and his only brother, to whom the title and all descend, was last heard of in America. He is believed to have been interested in mining in the Far West, and the lawyers are hunting for him."
"Well," said Murray, when Steve ceased reading, "what do you think of that?"
"I don't know exactly what to think. Your name is Murray."