"Sit down, my dear young lady. I know how grieved you will be; but agitation will not do any good. He died this afternoon at five o'clock."
There ensued a silence. Mary's breath was rising in gasps. "And--I--was not sent for to him," she cried, greatly agitated.
"There was no time to send," replied Mr. Knivett. "He had been ailing for several days past, but the doctor--it was Tillotson--said it was nothing; poor Hill himself thought it was not. This afternoon a change for the worse occurred, and I was sent for. There was no time for anything."
She pushed back the brown hair, braided so simply under the muslin cap. Pale memories were crowding upon her, mixing themselves up with present pain. The last time she had seen the surgeon, Tillotson, was the night when her father was found dead on his sofa, and poor Thomas Hill was mourning over him.
"Hill said more than once to me that he should not last long now his master Was gone," resumed the lawyer: "but I thought it was but an old man's talk, grieving after his many years' master and friend. He was right, however."
Regrets were stealing upon Mary. She had not, she thought, taken as much notice of this faithful old man as she ought. Why, oh, why, in that one sole visit she had made to Stilborough, to Mrs. Ord, did she not call to see him? These reproaches strike on us all when a friend passes away. The tears were trickling down her cheeks.
"And I should not have hastened over here to tell you this of itself, Miss Castlemaine; you'd have heard it soon without that; ill news travels fast. But nothing can be done without your sanction; hardly the first coffin ordered. You are left sole executor."
"I am! Executor!"
"Executrix, I should have said; but the other word comes more ready. His will does not contain ten lines, I think, for I made it; and there's not a name mentioned in it but yours. Every stick and stone is left to you; and sole, full power in all ways."
"But what shall I do, Mr. Knivett? To leave me executor!"