CHAPTER XXXII.
"YOU WILL VACATE THESE PREMISES AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE."
"Well, Gerald, I must confess this is rather tough on you!" Monsieur Correlli remarked, in a voice of undisguised astonishment, as soon as the lawyer disappeared. "I call it downright shabby of Anna to have left you so in the lurch."
"It does not matter," returned the elder man, but somewhat coldly; for, despite his feeling of relief over the disposition of her property, he experienced a twinge of jealousy toward the more fortunate heir, whose pity was excessively galling to him under the circumstances.
Although the two men had quarreled just before Monsieur Correlli's departure for New York, all ill-feeling had been ignored in view of their common loss and sorrow, and each had conducted himself with a courteous bearing toward the other during the last few days.
"What in the world do you suppose possessed her to make such a will?" the young man inquired, while he searched his companion's face with keen scrutiny. "And how strange that she should have imagined all of a sudden that she was going to die, and so put her affairs in order!"
Mr. Goddard saw that he had no suspicion of the real state of things, and he had no intention of betraying any secrets if he could avoid doing so.
No one—not even her own brother—should ever know that Anna had not been his wife. He would do what he could to shield her memory from every reproach, and no one should ever dream that—he could not divest himself of the suspicion—she had died willfully.
Therefore, he replied with apparent frankness:
"I think I can explain why she did so. On the day of our return from Wyoming, Anna and I had a more serious quarrel than usual; I never saw her so angry as she was at that time; she even went so far as to tell me that she hated me; and so, I presume, in the heat of her anger, she resolved to cut me off with the proverbial shilling to be revenged upon me."