“Let me understand clearly,” he said. “You intend to marry this—er—lady, and mean to settle four hundred a year on her for life?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose she marries again?”
“God in heaven, man, do you think I want to play dog-in-the-manger in my grave?”
“Then it had better take the form of a marriage settlement. It is the strongest instrument known in the law and avoids the death duties.”
Pickering winced, but the lawyer went on remorselessly. He regarded the marriage as a wholly quixotic notion, and knew only too well that Betsy Thwaites would be tried for murder if Pickering died.
“Have you no relatives?” he said. “I seem to recollect——”
“My cousin Stanhope? He’s quite well off, an M.P., and likely to be made a baronet.”
“He will not object to the chance of dropping in for £1,500 a year.”
“Do you think the estate will yield so much?”