From that she was saved—at least she was saved from that!
"He was as deep in debt as I in love; he only wanted my fortune.... He said I expected too much." ... She seemed to hear the very tones of the dry, lifeless voice.
"I think," said the vicar’s quavering voice, "that you should try to turn your thoughts a little from this young man to the startling news he brought. It seems—though it is hard, indeed, to realise—that you are not only wealthy, my child, but enormously wealthy. It"—he broke off with a nervous little laugh. "Such a thing has not happened before in our family. I will confess that it has shaken me."
Olwen came out from her own trouble and faced, as it were, suddenly her fortune from a new standpoint. She saw it no longer as the devilish thing which had tempted Nin to pretend that he loved her, but as a weapon of power, something that should enable her to repay to the family who had mothered her for so long some part of their unselfish performance of duty.
"Oh, Grandfather!" she cried, springing to her feet. She ran to him, flung her arms about him, and broke down into laughing and tears. "To be able to make you comfortable, to give you all you want ... and the aunts! Those wonderful aunts! They shall come out into the sunshine; the people who have patronised them shall come begging favours! Oh, Grandfather, it is true, you are sure it is true? We are not making any terrible mistake?"
"I feel sure that it is true. Mr. Guyse brought me this paper to read."
He laid before her an American newspaper, containing a long paragraph upon "The Glen Olwen Oil-King, Madoc Innes."
"Madoc returns a millionaire to the old country. Left home without a fiver. Left something that cost him more. His only daughter, Miss Olwen Innes. Romance of the gold-seeker. Miss Olwen knows nothing of the pile that awaits her."
"It appears that Mr. Guyse’s brother wrote recently to your father telling him that you were staying with his mother at the Pele—speaking as though your coming there had been accidental. That accounts, so Mr. Guyse thinks, for the fact that the New York lawyers sent the cable to the Pele direct."
"Oh, they planned it well, didn’t they? But somehow I escaped the snare," said the girl a little wildly. She sprang to her feet, ran to the door, opened it, and cried aloud for her aunts. They came in, their faces expressing consternation in every line.