"Exactly what I say. She has three hundred a year under this will."
"Three hundred——!" she gasped.
For the moment it was all she could do. A whiff at her ammonia brought her round.
"You mean to tell me that Uncle Barton left this woman an income equal to mine—equal—to—mine?"
"Certainly."
It is difficult to say what would eventually have happened to Mrs. Darrow if a knock at the front door had not then brought her face to face with another and even more stern reality. She gave a hasty peep through the window. What she saw had an effect homœopathic in principle, though it certainly was not so in dose. It was surprise upon surprise—like curing like. What she had seen was the figure of Mrs. Parsley, and with the sight had come a great calm over her. For she hated Mrs. Parsley more than she hated anyone at the present moment.
"Oh, my dear," she said, as the vicar's wife entered the room, "I am so delighted—this is a surprise. How are you?"
"It's easy to see there's not much the matter with you," returned her visitor, in her most aggressive manner.
"Indeed I am very ill," said Mrs. Darrow, in the faintest of faint voices, "if you only felt my pulse. I can hardly speak, it is so weak."
"Rubbish—that day'll never dawn. It's liver that's the matter with you. Liver, my dear—torpid liver. Too much to eat and too little to do!"