“You have told her?” she said, meeting Robert’s look.
“Yes, and left the copy of the will with her. It seems to have made her oblivious of lunch.”
“Poor girl!”
The exclamation was a sincere one. Robert looked surprised.
“Did she ask you many questions?” Isabel continued.
“Two: whether I had anything more to tell her; and whether I thought that the will was generally known? To the former I said ‘No;’ to the latter ‘Yes.’”
“Whether it was generally known,” repeated Isabel, with a low laugh of a not very mirthful kind. Then, after a pause, “What do people say of me? What is the common talk about me? What do the men say? and—oh! the women?”
“My dear cousin, you know perfectly well what they say; what they have been saying since they first began to talk about you—that you are a charming woman, and so good-hearted that no one can for shame breathe a word against you.”
Isabel sighed.
“Rather, so shameless that gossip has not yet found the proper term to characterise me. Well, never mind myself; happily I shall soon cease to be an object of any general interest. But did she not ask any question about the value of the property?”