"About that will of Mrs. Edwin Barley's, Anne?" he presently asked. "Did her husband destroy it?"
If I had thought so as a child, and thought so still, it was not possible for me to say it; but Mr. Chandos had acquired a habit of reading what I hesitated to speak.
"I see; you think it better not to avow dangerous doctrines."
"Indeed, I should be grieved to know that he really took it. Its disappearance was very strange."
"You don't think he took it; you only had an instinct that way. But, Anne, your instincts are generally true ones. Mr. Barley has the character of being a hard, grasping man, loving money better than anything else in the world, except the bringing to punishment of George Heneage. He could not bear for the little trifle to go beside him; compared to his large property, it was but what a drop of water is to the wide ocean. He did not want it, you did; you have but little."
"I have nothing, nothing but what I earn. Mamma sunk for my education the trifle of money she had saved."
"But—the daughter of Colonel Hereford ought to enjoy a pension," he debated, stopping short in his walk.
"Papa sold out previous to his death."
"Oh, I see," and he resumed his walk.
"Mr. Chandos, may I ask you a question?"