“What?” almost screamed Mrs. Richards, reeling where she stood.
She had never even thought of such a calamity.
“There is no nearer relative living,” she continued, with pale lips. “You yourself said you were convinced of that.”
“And so I was, a month ago, madam; but I have been obliged to change my opinion since then.”
“What—what has changed it?” she asked, trembling with fear and excitement.
It would be too dreadful now, when the prize was almost within her grasp, to lose it, and to be obliged to return poor and disappointed to America.
“You remember, perhaps,” the lawyer said, avoiding meeting her eyes, for they were wild in their expression, “that I told you that Sir William Thornton—the late Sir Charles’ father—had a younger brother, Albert by name——”
“Yes, but you said that he left home years ago to go as a missionary to some outlandish place, where he died,” interrupted the anxious woman.
“Where it was supposed he died,” said Mr. Compton, with significant emphasis.
“Did he not die?—is he living?—has he returned?” his client gasped.