“Ye—es, I think so,” replied her husband. ‘‘All he said seemed right enough. I can draw out your money of course any day, my own too in part. The man can have no motive, as far as I can see. He doesn’t w my money, but still it seems queer.”
“What?” asked Marion.
“Oh! I forgot I hadn’t told you. Wrexham has such a poor opinion of the investment your cousin, Mr. Framley Vere, so strongly recommended. I really don’t know what to do. Mr. Framley Vere is considered a very good man of business, and he, you know, is your other trustee. In fact I have hardly any right to delay doing as he advised—with respect to your money and Harry’s I mean. He wrote about it three weeks ago and wished it done at once, only I have never succeeded in getting hold of Wrexham. And I can’t but be to some extent impressed by what he said. If I wait a month or two he says he can put me in the way of something much better—more secure, that’s to say. But I don’t like seeming to oppose Mr. Framley Vere. Indeed I’ve no right to do so. If he were at home I would go and see him. But he’s on the continent.”
“You might write to him,” suggested Marion; “his letters are sure to be forwarded.”
“So I might, certainly,” replied her husband. “I don’t know but what it will be the best plan. I will write and tell him all Wrexham told me. It was in confidence, but that of course does not exclude my co-trustee. I can ask him to reply at once. Yes, that will be the best plan. Thank you for suggesting it. You see I hate writing so, it’s the last expedient that ever enters my head.”
And with considerable relief at the solution of his perplexity, Mr. Baldwin left the breakfast-table.
Two days later Marion fell ill. Her complaint was only a very bad cold, but so bad that for a fortnight she was confined to her room. Geoffrey was unhappy enough about her, though he said little. Marion herself was comparatively cheerful. The enforced rest of body, and to a great extent of mind also, was soothing to her just then. And she was the sort of woman that is never sweeter and more loveable than in illness.
Geoffrey wrote to Mr. Framley Vere. But during this fortnight there came no answer. The first day Marion was downstairs again, Geoffrey told her that the morning’s post had brought a letter from Miss Temple, begging him possible to meet her the following day at a half-way point on her journey homewards from Devonshire, as her escort could only bring her thus far, and in her helpless state her maid was not sufficient protection. The young man hesitated to comply, as he disliked the idea of leaving his wife alone in a barely convalescent state; but when she heard or it, Marion begged him to do as Veronica asked.
“It is but little we can do for her,” she said, “and only think what a friend she has been to us both.”
“To me,” replied Geoffrey, “but I am not so sure that you have the same reason to say so. Had it not been for her—for meeting again at her house, I mean—the probability is, poor child, you would never have been talked out of your first decision. What would it not have saved you!”