Rachel. Yes, a letter of that shape always is. It's about business, I suppose.
[She leans back in her chair and goes on
cutting the book with a paper-knife].
Carteret [trying to open the letter]. And then the brutes stick it down so that you can't get it open.
Rachel [laughing]. No great loss, I daresay. Here!
[She throws him the paper-knife and leans back idly, comfortable in her chair. Carteret takes the knife and cuts it open].
Carteret [excited]. Oh! Rachel!
Rachel [interested but not anxious]. What is it? Who's it from?
Carteret [reading the name at the top of the paper]. It's from Threlfold and Bixley, solicitors. They're—[then he looks at Rachel as though hesitating to speak the name suddenly]—Jack Thornton's solicitors.
[Rachel aghast stands up transfixed—Carteret is so full of the letter that he doesn't look at her].
Carteret. Listen! 'Dear Sir—We have to inform you that we have received from East Africa the will of our late client, Mr John Thornton, deceased, in which he instructs us that a third of the fortune he acquired there, is to be assigned, on her twenty-first birthday, to Mary Carteret, his [he is going to turn over the page when Rachel rushes forward with a shriek].