“What is all?”
“What I say. Mr Tregennas wrote that letter, and there the matter ended.”
“Ended! Do you pretend to tell me there was no answer from Anthony?”
“Never a word more. And that was enough for Mr Tregennas. It had been all I could do to work him up so far, and I confess,—though I was a fool not to know the world better at my time of life,—I confess I hoped there was a chance for poor Margaret’s girl when we had got him to that point.”
“A chance!” stammered Mr Chester, as red and discomfited as if he had been the person accused. “Anthony would have jumped to give it to her, as I’ve told you already.”
“So it seemed,” said the lawyer, dryly.
“Confound you, man, but I tell you he would!”
“I can only answer you by the facts of the case.”
“But—I’ll ask him—you don’t know what you’re saying—my word for it, he never had that letter.”
“I posted it myself. Besides, where is it? If there had been a non-delivery we should have heard by this time from the Dead-Letter Office. Pooh, pooh, Chester, the temptation was a little too strong, that’s the long and short of it, and, after all, no one pretends that there was any fraud. Mr Tregennas put the choice into his hands, and he had no doubt an absolute right to choose.”