CHAPTER IV
"I thought they were never going. Well?"
It was Miss Pringle who had come in from her retreat in the garden, eager to hear the news the moment she had seen the Wickhams driving away. Nora turned and looked at her without a word.
Miss Pringle was genuinely startled at the drawn look on her face.
"Nora! What's the matter? Isn't it as much as you thought?"
"Miss Wickham has left me nothing," said Nora in a dead voice.
Miss Pringle gave a positive wail of anguish. "Oh-h-h-h."
"Not a penny. Oh, it's cruel!" the girl said, almost wildly. "After all," she went on bitterly, "there was no need for her to leave me anything. She gave me board and lodging and thirty pounds a year. If I stayed it was because I chose. But she needn't have promised me anything. She needn't have prevented me from marrying."
"My dear, you could never have married that little assistant. He wasn't a gentleman," Miss Pringle reminded her.