According to all known rules Dolly ought to have had one or two very sufficient pains, one or two very decided symptoms, but Dolly had no pains and no symptoms. She was only tired she declared, exhausted mentally and bodily if he preferred that form of expression, and she should be well in the spring.
That was all any one could make out of Mrs. Mortomley, and when the spring came it seemed to justify her prediction.
With the bright weather Dolly revived. She sat in the sunshine, she donned her brightest apparel, she ate with a relish the simple country fare, and she requested the kindly rector to say one day from the reading-desk that Dollabella Mortomley desired to return thanks for "mercies vouchsafed."
"For what mercies, my dear?" asked the good rector, who could not look at her wistful, eager face quite unmoved.
"God has vouchsafed me another spring," she answered; "one of almost unalloyed happiness."
And so the sunshine of old returned and stayed with her to the end.
With the spring came Mrs. Werner. Her friend had requested her visit long before; but she delayed complying with that request till an almost imperative message brought her South.
Then Dolly gave her that packet, the secret of which she had kept so faithfully, and when Mrs. Werner opened it, she found notes to the amount of two thousand pounds and a letter, her dead husband's confession and fare-well. "I cannot retain this money," said Mrs. Werner.
"Do so for a week and then we will talk about it," Mrs. Mortomley answered, and for a week the widow maintained silence, walking alone through those Hertfordshire woods, and for the first time keeping her vigil with the dead.
"Do not send that money to lawyer, trustee, or creditor, Lenny," said Mrs. Mortomley when they came to talk the matter over. "Remember your marriage vows and obey your husband. He risked much to save that for you; do not frustrate his intentions. When the expenses come out of that, it would be a penny in the pound to the creditors; and if you could send it direct to the creditors, they would not thank you for it. Poor Lang—oh how sorry I am Archie and Lang could not get on together, for he was one in a thousand—said to me once,