“Nothing? Not even a word to say he forgave me for coming away?”
“There is a letter. You will see it later on. What I meant was that your name was not mentioned in the will. He left you no legacy.”
Mollie sat down in the easy-chair, and leant her head against the cushions. In spite of all that had passed, in spite of every determination to be prepared for the worst, the blow fell with crushing weight. She was conscious of a feeling of physical weakness, as if the body shared with the mind in grieving over the vanished dream; but she tried bravely to smile and look unconcerned.
“Then I suppose he—Victor Druce—inherits all?”
Jack looked at her with anxious eyes.
“You expected it, didn’t you? You are not surprised? It seems to have been generally taken for granted for the last six months.”
“Yes; so Mrs Thornton said. If it had been anyone else I should not grudge it so much. And you are left out too! I wish—oh, I wish it had been different!”
Jack Melland took a step forward, and bent over her chair.
“Mollie,” he said softly, “shall we console each other? I have been waiting until this question was settled before coming to see you. It seemed an endless time to wait, but I couldn’t come till I knew the truth. How could a poor fellow, with a few beggarly hundreds a year, approach a girl who might be one of the biggest heiresses in the kingdom? But I didn’t forget you—I couldn’t forget. I have been thinking of you night and day. It was all the harder to be silent when you were in trouble; but it was the straight thing to do. You can’t tell what it means to me to see you again! When you opened the door just now, and the lamp-light showed me your little golden head—”
He broke off, with the same strange quiver in his voice which had marked his first utterance of her name; but Mollie shrank back still further in her chair, staring at him with troubled eyes.