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Mr. Davis stared for a moment. Then he suddenly realized—and by a marvellous leap of intelligence on his part—that Miss Mason was under the impression that he would yearly press fifteen thousand sovereigns into her palm. The question of banks and cheque-books had not presented itself to her mind.

During the next half-hour Henry Davis found himself explaining matters to Miss Mason much as he would have explained them to a child of twelve. Miss Mason grasped the situation instantly.

“Then before you go you’d better show me how to draw a cheque,” she said. “Think that was your expression. I’m not imbecile, though when a woman of sixty doesn’t know the first principles of banks and cheque-books you might think she was.”

It was after Mr. Davis had left that Miss Mason gradually began to realize what Miss Stanhope’s death and her newly-acquired wealth would mean. She had lived so long in one groove that the possibility of change had never actually occurred to her. At first she had felt almost stunned. But suddenly, in a flash, she saw a new life before her. Every dream of her seventeenth year could be fulfilled. It found expression in one short sentence: