“Going so soon?” cried Kathleen Weir, gaily. She was disappointed at his leaving so early, but she did not wish to show this.
“I can wait,” she thought, after he had quitted the room; “they say everything comes to those who wait.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE DEAD MAN’S BELONGINGS.
Mr. Temple’s sudden death had also naturally created great excitement both at Woodlea Hall and at the farm at Woodside. The squire had breakfasted with his wife as usual on the morning it occurred, and about an hour later Mrs. Temple had gone into the library to ask him for some money she required, when to her surprise and alarm she found him with his gray head lying on the writing-table before him, and his arms hanging limply by his side.
“Phillip!” she exclaimed, and ran up to him, and laid her hands on his shoulder.
But the face that had ever looked gently at her did not stir. Then Mrs. Temple raised his head, and the moment she did so she gave a wild shriek. For there was no mistaking the pallid gray hue of the complexion, or the dull, glazed, half-open eyes. Mr. Temple was dead, and Mrs. Temple, ever impulsive and excitable, ran screaming to the door of the room to tell the news and summon the household.
They sent for the doctor, and the newly-made widow knelt by the squire’s side and chafed his cold hands, and wailed and wept for the man to whom in his lifetime she had given no love. Now she regretted this, she clung to him, and would fain have recalled him to her side.
And presently her mother arrived on the scene and then her father. Mrs. Layton’s first thought when she heard the squire was dead was to speculate on how much he had left behind him, and to groan in spirit at the idea that now her daughter would probably have to leave the Hall.
“And that John Temple will be coming, I suppose,” she whispered to her husband, “and where will we all be?”