She sighed, and took one of his hands in both hers and smiled. She had never dreamed of a lover, but if she had dreamed of one in her latter years he surely would be such a one as this. How sensible and considerate and affectionate he was! If he had been more ardent, more enthusiastic, she might fear his displays were insincere, that although he loved her then, he would tire of her soon after they were married, and, she being so much older than he, take his ardours and transports to the feet of younger and more beautiful goddesses.
But with such as he there could be no such fear. Raptures might please a girl, and be excused in a young man towards a girl, but from any man to her they would be absurd and repulsive. It would be impossible to believe them sincere, and the mere idea that a lover's words and actions were not the outcome of candid feeling would be shocking, destructive of all sympathy and self-respect.
But William, her William, as she now called him, was perfect in all he said and all he did; and of one thing she felt quite sure: that if ever a cloud came between them in their married life, it would arise from some defect in her nature, not in his.
When old Crawford made his will a couple of years before his death he did not wish to place any restraint upon her as to marriage after he had gone, except that she was to keep his name. He had made all his money himself; he had worked hard for it, allowing himself no luxuries and little comfort for the best part of life, and deferring marriage until he was well on in years and had given up active business. He had no child, no relative he knew of in the world. He would have welcomed a son with joy. Nothing would have pleased him more than to think that the name which he had raised up out of poverty into modest affluence would survive and flourish when he was no more.
But a son was denied to him. All hope of an heir was gone. He loved his wife in his own way, and he would not fetter her future with an imposed lifelong widowhood. She was to be left free to wed again if her choice lay that way. She had been a true and tender wife to him, the one source of peaceful happiness in his old age. She should not feel the dead hand of a niggard; she should have all his money, but she should keep his name. His name should not die out wholly even when she ceased to be. He should leave her all the income from his property for her life, or as long as she retained the name he had given her. If she changed that name the name should not die. His money should go to Guy's Hospital, and be known, while that great handmaiden of the sick poor survived, as the Crawford Bequest. When she followed him to the grave the money should go finally to the hospital, and be of bounteous service to the indigent sick and a perpetual living monument to his name.
"Mrs. Crawford," said Mr. Brereton, her lawyer, when he came to draw up the necessary documents in connection with the marriage of the widow and Goddard, "has only a life interest in the estate. It goes to Guy's Hospital upon her death."
"Is it necessary for us to take further into consideration that remote and most melancholy contingency?" asked Goddard.
"No, no," said Mr. Brereton hastily. "But business is business, and I thought it only right to mention the matter to you."
Goddard merely bowed, as though dismissing the horrible thought from amongst them.
Goddard settled upon her ten thousand pounds.