“I don’t know,” said the old lady, hesitatingly. “I don’t take a paper; but perhaps I can find one that came round a bundle, if that will do.”
“Yes, mother, anything. It don’t matter what.”
After diligent search, the old lady managed to discover part of a last week’s daily paper that had come round a package which she had recently bought. Apologizing for the unsatisfactory result of her search, she placed it in Margaret’s hand.
In general, there is nothing very interesting in an old daily paper; but Margaret, who had been shut out from the world for nearly two months, and knew nothing of what had transpired during that time, seized the fragment with avidity, and read it entire, even to the advertisements. Finally her glance wandered to the deaths; she started as she met the name of Rand.
Died. At his residence in Fifth Avenue, Gerald Rand, Esq., 71.
“He’s dead, then, at last,” she murmured, “and Jacob Wynne has got the thousand dollars which were promised him. Let him enjoy it while he may. It will not be long, unless,—but I must see him before I take any decisive step. He may have said what he did only to provoke me. Would to heaven it were so! Yes, I must see him; I must give him one more chance, and then, if he still scorns me,” this she said with fierce emphasis, “let him look to himself.”
“What have you read that excites you so much, Margaret?” questioned her mother, anxiously.
“Nothing particular.”
“You frightened me when you spoke so fiercely.”
“Did I?” said Margaret. “I was only talking to myself. It’s a way I have. But, mother,” she continued, changing her tone suddenly, “do you think I shall be well enough to go out to-morrow?”