“I hoped,” said she, “that the mere mention of my situation would be enough to excite your sympathy. I see that I was mistaken, and am sorry that I have troubled you.”
“You are too hasty,” said Mowbray. “You see, I look at your position merely from a legal point of view.”
“A legal point!” exclaimed Mrs. Mowbray, who had now dried her eyes and restored the handkerchief and the salts bottle to their proper places. “A legal point! Ah, Miss Dalton, my son is great on legal points. He is quite a lawyer. If he had embraced the law as a profession, which I once thought of getting him to do, though that was when he was quite a child, and something or other put it quite out of my head—if he had embraced the law as a profession, my dear, he might have aspired to the bench.”
Edith rested her brow on her hand and bit her lips, reproaching herself for having confided her troubles to these people. Wiggins himself was more endurable.
“Your case,” said Captain Mowbray, tapping his boot with his cane in a careless manner, “is one which requires a very great amount of careful consideration.”
Edith said nothing. She had become hopeless.
“If there is a will, and Wiggins has powers given him in the instrument, he can give you a great deal of trouble without your being able to prevent it.”
This scene was becoming intolerable, and Edith could bear it no longer.
“I want to make one final request,” said she, with difficulty controlling the scorn and indignation which she felt. “It is this—will you give me a seat in your carriage as far as the village inn?”
“The village inn?” repeated Mowbray, and the he was silent for some time. His mother looked at him inquiringly and curiously.