Still I can't abide them, nor I
am sure have you any reason to do so; for when I and my husband
first came here we learned a good deal of the part they had played
in a certain matter, and that of course set me altogether against
them.
"Of course, my dear Mrs. Conway, I do not wish to alarm you about
the will; still you ought to know how things stand, and my husband
this morning asked me to tell you all there was to tell. I hope in
a few days to be able to write and give you better news. Things
may not be as they fear."
Mrs. Conway sat for a long time with this letter before her. She had
not read it straight through, but after glancing at the first few
lines that told of the death of Herbert Penfold she had laid it aside,
and it was a long time before she took it up again. He had been the
love of her youth; and although he had seemingly gone for so many
years out of her life, she knew that when she had found how he had all
this time watched over her and so delicately aided her, and that for
her sake he was going to make Ralph his heir, her old feeling had been
revived. Not that she had any thought that the past would ever return.
His letters indeed had shown that he regarded his life as approaching
its end; but since the receipt of that letter she had always thought
of him with a tender affection as one who might have been her husband
had not either evil fate or malice stepped in to prevent it.
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