"Mrs. Davenport, I hope you will always allow me to be your friend. Your troubles have, I know, been very great, and you are now no doubt suffering so severely that you think the whole world is against you. We, at all events, are not. Anything we can do for you we will; and, believe me, Mrs. Davenport, doing anything for you will be a downright pleasure."
The widow bowed her head for a moment before speaking. It seemed as though she could not trust her voice. After a brief pause she sat up, and, resting the tips of the fingers of both hands on the table, said:
"As I told you earlier to-day, I have been alone all my life, and the notion of fellowship is terrible to me, coming now upon me when my life is over."
"Indeed you should not talk of your life being over. You are still quite young. Many a woman does not begin her life until she is older than you."
"I am thirty-four, and that is not young for one to begin life."
"But, may I ask," said Mr. Paulton, "how it is that the will becomes inoperative? How is it that you cannot avail yourself of your husband's bequests?"
"My reasons for not taking my husband's money must, for the present--I hope for ever--remain with myself. Mr. Blake has told me certain things, and I have found out others myself. I am now without money--I do not mean," she said, flushing slightly, "for the present moment, for a month or two--but I am without any money on which I can rely for my support. I shall have to begin life again--or, rather, begin it for the first time. I shall have to work for my living, just as any other widow who is left alone without provision. This is very plain speaking, but the position is simple."
"But, my dear Mrs. Davenport, you must not in this way give yourself up to despair," said Mr. Paulton, as he rose and stood beside her.
"Despair!" she cried, looking up at him with a quick glance of angry surprise. "Despair! You do not think me so poor a coward as to despair. How can one who never knew hope know despair? I am in no trouble about the future. I shall take to a line of life in which there is room and to spare for such as I."
"Do not do anything hastily, I have a good deal of influence left."