"You have plenty of friends," George reminded her consolingly.
Sylvia rose, and there was bitterness in her expression.
"Friends? Oh, yes; but I've come back to them a widow, badly provided for—that's why I spent some months in Montreal before I could nerve myself to face them." Then her voice softened as she fixed her eyes on him. "It's fortunate there are one or two I can rely on."
Sylvia left him with two clear impressions: her helplessness, and the fact that she trusted him. While he sat turning over the papers, his cousin and co-trustee came in. Herbert Lansing was a middle-aged business man, and he was inclined to portliness. His clean-shaven and rather fleshy face usually wore a good-humored expression; his manners were easy and, as a rule, genial.
"We must have a talk," he began, indicating the documents in George's hand. "I suppose you have grasped the position, even if Sylvia hasn't explained it. She shows an excellent knowledge of details."
There was a hint of dryness in his tone that escaped George's notice.
"So far as I can make out," he answered, "Dick owned a section of a second-class wheat-land, with a mortgage on the last quarter, some way back from a railroad. The part under cultivation gives a poor crop."
"What would you value the property at?"
George made a rough calculation.
"I expected something of the kind," Herbert told him. "It's all Sylvia has to live upon, and the interest would hardly cover her dressmaker's bills." He looked directly at his cousin. "Of course, it's possible that she will marry again."