“Grandfather,” I insisted, “you wanted my mother to marry a Pendorric. Are you glad I’ve married Roc?”

He was silent for a few moments; then he said: ” Because you’re in love with him … yes. I shouldn’t have wanted it otherwise.”

” But you spoke of linking the families. My mother left home because you wanted her to marry Roc’s father.”

” That was years ago. I suspect those Pendorrics wanted not so much my daughter as my money, and your father wanted her for herself … must have done, because she knew me well enough to understand that when I said there’d be nothing for her if she ran away, I meant it.”

I was silent and he lay back in his chair and closed his eyes though he had taken my hand and kept it in his. I could see how the veins stood out at his temples and that he was more flushed than usual. Such excitement was not good for him, I was sure.

My grandfather! I thought, watching him. So I had a relative after all. My eyes went round the room at the paintings on the wall. They were all of the old school. Grandfather would not buy modern paintings, which he loathed, but all the same he would have an eye for a bargain. I guessed that the pictures in this room alone were worth a fortune.

Then I thought of the studio, and my mother who had bargained so fiercely over my father’s work; and it seemed to me that life was indeed ironical.

I was glad that I had a grandfather. I had liked him from the moment we met; but I wished—oh, how I wished that he were not such a rich man. I remembered what he had said about being uncomfortably off.

Although it was less than an hour since I had discovered I was the granddaughter of a millionaire, I understood very well what he meant.

I sat with him for an hour after that; we talked of the past and the future. I told him incidents from those early days which I had not thought of telling before, because I now understood how vitally interested he was in every seemingly insignificant detail. And he told me that Polhorgan was now my home and that I must treat it thus. I walked back to Pendorric in a state of bewilderment, and when I was midway between the two houses I looked from one to the other. My homes, I murmured. And my pride in them was spoilt by an uneasy suspicion which was beginning to grow within me.

I was relieved, when I went up to our bedroom, to find that Roc had come in.

” Roc,” I called, and as he turned to look at me he said: “So he’s told you?”

“How did you guess?”

” My darling, you look just like a woman who has been told that she is the granddaughter of a millionaire.”

” And you knew all the time!”

He nodded, smiling.

“It seems extraordinary that you could keep such a secret.” He was laughing as he took me by the shoulders. ” It’s women who can’t keep secrets, you know.”

He put his arm round me and held me against him; but I withdrew myself because I wanted to look into his face.

” I want to think about it all … as it happened,” I said. ” You came to the studio, looking for me. You were going to report on me to my grandfather.”

” Yes. I was going to take some pictures of you to show him. I was determined to do the job thoroughly.”

” You did it very thoroughly indeed.”

” I’m glad that you approve of my methods.”

” And my father …” I said. ” He knew too.”

“Of course he knew. He’d lived near Pendorric. That was how he first met your mother.”

” Father knew … and didn’t tell me.”

” I’d explained to him my promise of secrecy.”

” I can’t understand. It was so unlike him to have secrets from me.”

” This was a very important matter. I reckon he wanted you to please your grandfather. It’s understandable.”

I looked at him sharply; he was smiling complacently. ” How I wish” I began.

“What do you wish?”

” That you hadn’t known.”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

I was silent. I felt I was going too far. I was almost on the point of asking Roc whether he had married me on account of my grandfather’s money, when I didn’t even know that I was his heiress. But everything was changed. When I had thought of Barbanna I had continually told myself that our positions were so different because she had been married for her money. The simple fact was that now I was beginning to wonder whether I too had been.

” What’s on your mind?” persisted Roc.

” It’s the shock,” I replied evasively. ” When you think you haven’t any family and you suddenly find yourself con fronted by a grandfather it’s a little bewildering. It takes time to adjust yourself.”

” You’re a little aloof, you’re weighing me up. I don’t much like it.”

He was looking at me intently, very seriously.

“Why?”

“I’m afraid of being weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

” Why should you be afraid?”

” Because you’re hiding something from me—or trying to.”

” You are the one who hides things successfully.”

” Only one thing—and I had made a promise not to tell.” He laughed suddenly, and seizing me, lifted me and held me up so that I had to look down on him. ” Listen,” he said, ” and get this clear. I married you because I fell in love with you. It would have been the same if you were the granddaughter of old Bill the Beachcomber. Understand me?”

I put out my hands and touched his ears; he lowered me until my face was on a level with his. Then he kissed me; and as usual, while I was with him, I forgot my fears.

Now that the news was out, the whole of Pendorric village was agog with it. I knew that I had only to appear for the subject to be discussed. People looked at me as though they had discovered something different about me. I was the focus of attention in the neighbourhood.

In the first place I had come out of the blue as the Bride of Pendorric; and now it turned Out that I was the granddaughter of old Lord Polhorgan. Many of them could remember my mother’s running away with the painter; and it seemed a fitting romantic sequel that I should return as a bride.

Mrs. Robinson at the general store whispered to me that my story was good enough for the television; Dinah Bond told me, when I met her one day in the village, that she knew there was something dramatic in my hand and she would have told me if only I’d let her; Morwenna and Charles appeared to be delighted; Lowella was vociferous, squealing her delight, and went about singing something about ” When Grandpappa asked Grandmamma for the second minuet,” which appeared to be quite irrelevant; Hyson regarded me with silent interest as though this new development was not entirely unexpected.

For several days everyone talked of it, but I guessed that it would turn out to be a nine days’ wonder.

There were two conversations which stood out in my mind. One I had with Rachel Bective, the other I overheard.

I had gone down to Pendorric beach to swim one afternoon and as I came out of the water I saw Rachel emerge from the gardens and step on to the beach.

I looked about for the twins, but she was alone. She came over and said: ” What’s the sea like today?”

” Quite warm,” I answered, and lay down on the shingle. She sat down beside me and started playing idly with the pebbles.

“What a surprise it must have been for you” she said.

“Had you no idea?”

” None at all.”

” Well, it’s not everyone who gets presented with a grandfather at your time of life. And a millionaire peer at that!” I thought her expression a trifle unpleasant and I half rose, preparing to go up through the gardens.

” Roc knew of course,” she went on. Then she laughed. ” He must have been tickled to death.”

“You think it’s an amusing situation when families are broken up?”

” I think it’s amusing that Roc should go out to find you and bring you back—his bride. No wonder he has been looking so smug.”

” What do you mean?”

Her greenish eyes under the sandy brows glinted a little; her mouth was straight and grim. I thought: she is either very hurt or very angry. And suddenly I wasn’t so annoyed with her as I had been a few minutes before.

She seemed to take a grip of herself. ” Roc always liked to know what other people didn’t. He’d think it great fun having a secret like that, and the rest of us being in the dark. Besides …” I waited for her to go on, but she shrugged her shoulders. Then she gave a harsh laugh which seemed to hold a note of bitterness. ” Some people have all the luck,” she said. ” Mrs. Pendorric and granddaughter of Lord Polhorgan, who already dotes on her.”

” I think I’ll be getting back,” I said. ” It’s not so warm as I thought.”

She nodded, and as I crunched my way over the shingle she sat looking out at the sea; and I could imagine the expression on her face, for she had betrayed the fact that she was jealous of me. Jealous because I was the granddaughter of a rich man? Or jealous because I was Roc’s wife?

I believed it might be for both these reasons.

The second conversation took place the following day and I heard the end of it unwittingly. I was in the quadrangle gardens and one of the windows on the ground floor of me north wing was wide open, so the voice came floating through to me and I had caught the gist of the conversation before I could get out of earshot.

It was Charles and Morwenna who were speaking, and at first I did not realise they were talking of me.

“I thought be was looking pleased with himself.” That was Charles. ” I’ve never known him so contented.”

” She’s a pleasant creature.”

” She has everything.”