"You wouldn't be responsible, at all events," she replied with a laugh, "for it is addressed to Miss Belle Stuart."
"I am not so sure about that," he retorted, still in the same jesting way. "It is astonishing how far the responsibility of a husband extends."
"And his rights," cried Belle, who in a halfhearted way professed advanced opinions on this subject.
"My dear girl, we must have some compensation."
He sat reading, or pretending to read, his own letters with phenomenal patience, while his wife glanced through a long crossed communication from her step-sisters; he even gave a perfunctory attention to several items of uninteresting family news which she retailed to him. He had foreseen the situation so long, had imagined it so often, that he felt quite at home and confident of his self-control.
"John!" came Belle's voice, with a curious catch in it.
"What is it, dear? Nothing the matter, I hope? You look startled." He had imagined it so far; but he knew the next minute from her face that he had under-rated something in her reception of the news. She had risen to her feet with a scared, frightened look. "I don't understand," she said, half to herself; "it must be a mistake." Then remembering, apparently, that she no longer stood alone, she crossed swiftly to her husband's side, and kneeling beside him thrust the open letter before his eyes. "What does it mean, John?" she asked hurriedly. "It is a mistake, isn't it?"
His hand, passed round her caressingly, could feel her heart bounding, but his own kept its even rhythm despite the surprise he forced into his face. "It means," he said, at length,--and the ring of triumph would not be kept out of his voice--"that Philip Marsden has left you thirty thousand pounds."
"Left me!--impossible! I tell you it is a mistake!"
Now that the crisis was over, the cat out of the bag, John Raby knew how great his anxiety had been, by the sense of relief which found vent in a meaningless laugh. "Lawyers don't make mistakes," he replied. "It is as clear as daylight. Philip Marsden has left you thirty thousand pounds! By Jove, Belle, you are quite an heiress!"