“Well, then, Mrs. Tresham! And pray where is my brother?”
“Dead.”
“Dead? dead? Impossible! And if so, it is your fault, I know it is! I had a letter from him––the last letter––he said he was coming to me.”
She was frightfully pale; she staggered to a sofa, sat down, and covered her face with her gloved hands. Denasia stood by a table watching her emotion and half-doubting its genuineness. A silence followed, so deep and long that Elizabeth could not endure it. She stood up and looked at Denasia, reproach and accusation in every tone and attitude. “Where did he die?” she asked.
“In New York.”
“Of what did he die?”
“Of pneumonia.”
“It was your fault, I am sure of it. Your fault in some way. My poor Roland! He had left you, I know that; and I hoped everything for his future.”
“He had come back to me. He loved me better than ever. He died in my arms––died adoring me. His last work on earth was to give me this list of 282 property, which I shall require you either to render back or to buy from me.”
Elizabeth knew well what was wanted, and her whole soul was in arms at the demand. Yet it was a perfectly just one. By his father’s will Roland had been left certain pieces of valuable personal property: family portraits and plate, two splendid cabinets, old china, Chinese and Japanese carvings, many fine paintings, antique chairs, etc., etc., the whole being property which had either been long in the Tresham family or endeared to it by special causes, and therefore left personally to Roland as the representative of the Treshams. At the break up of the Tresham home after his father’s death, Roland had been glad to leave these treasures in Elizabeth’s care, nor in his wandering life had the idea of claiming them ever come to him. As for their sale, that would have been an indignity to his ancestors below the contemplation of Roland.