Lavinia Weston looked at her brother while the surgeon told his story.
"He is very desperate about his wife, then, this dashing young captain?" Mr. Marchmont said, presently.
"Awful," answered the surgeon; "regular awful. I never saw anything like it. Really it was enough to cut a man up to hear him go on so. He asked me all sorts of questions about the time when she was ill and I attended upon her, and what did she say to me, and did she seem very unhappy, and all that sort of thing. Upon my word, you know, Mr. Paul,—of course I am very glad to think of your coming into the fortune, and I'm very much obliged to you for the kind promises you've made to me and Lavinia; but I almost felt as if I could have wished the poor young lady hadn't drowned herself."
Mrs. Weston shrugged her shoulders, and looked at her brother.
"Imbecile!" she muttered.
She was accustomed to talk to her brother very freely in rather school-girl French before her husband, to whom that language was as the most recondite of tongues, and who heartily admired her for superior knowledge.
He sat staring at her now, and eating bread-and-butter with a simple relish, which in itself was enough to mark him out as a man to be trampled upon.
* * * * *
On the fourth day after his interview with Hester, Edward Arundel was strong enough to leave his chamber at the Black Bull.
"I shall go to London by to-night's mail, Morrison," he said to his servant; "but before I leave Lincolnshire, I must pay another visit to Marchmont Towers. You can stop here, and pack my portmanteau while I go."