“Yes, my love, I am most grateful to you.”
“I am certain—as I tell you—that you are going to live and get well.” Mrs. North meant her words at the moment, for, with the sweet insolence of youth, she was incredulous of death until it was absolutely before her eyes. “But at the same time,” she went on, “now that you are enormously rich, you ought to take precautions in case of an accident. If the cottage were burned down to-night, and we were burned with it, who would inherit your money?”
“I told Mr. Boughton that I would give my instructions to you, and he is coming the day after to-morrow.”
“But have you destroyed the will you made in favour of Alfred Wimple?”
“I have not got it; he took it away with him.” Mrs. North looked quite alarmed.
“We must make another, this minute,” she said; “if the conflagration took place this evening he would get every penny. Let me make it this minute. I can do it on a sheet of note-paper. Don’t agitate your dear old self, I shall be back directly”—and in a moment she had fled downstairs and returned with her blotting-book, and once more she knelt down by a table to write. “You want to leave everything to the Hibberts, don’t you?”
“Yes; but if you would permit me, my love, I should like to leave you something.”
“Then I couldn’t make the will, for it would not be legal; besides, I am rich enough, you kind old lady. Shall I begin?”
“Stop one moment, my dear; will you give me a little sal volatile first, and let me rest for five minutes?”
She closed her eyes, but it was not to sleep; she appeared to be thinking of something that disturbed her. When she looked up again she was almost panting with excitement as well as weakness, and there was the fierce, yet frightened, look in her eyes that had been in them when she opened the front door to turn Alfred Wimple out of the house.