The Black Abbot by Edgar Wallace — Read

He spoke without bitterness, without a hint of self-pity, and she was silent. He was the child of a second marriage, and that had made it worse for him. When old Lord Chelford followed Dick's mother to the grave, the second son's portion was his. The estate, the title, the very car he had used as his own, passed from him. A tiny estate in Hertfordshire that brought two hundred a year, some old jewellery of his mother's and a thousand pounds came the way of the second son. And the thousand pounds had never been paid. In some mysterious fashion it had been swallowed up.

Mr. Arthur Gwyn had settled the estate. In all the circumstances Dick felt happier when he did not think of that thousand pounds. Yet, for some reason or other, he thought of it now, and as though she read his thoughts dimly, and associated his reserve with her brother, she asked: