Gertrude appeared satisfied.
"Thank you, Richard," she said. "I hope you have not thought me very troublesome or needlessly inquisitive. It was natural I should ask, was it not?"
"Quite natural, Gertrude. Never hesitate to speak to me about anything. I am only too glad when you come to me for any information I can give."
The girl left him, and Dick's face assumed a brighter expression.
"That is well over," thought he. "I have been rather dreading this, and I am glad I have been able to satisfy her quite truthfully without telling her too much. In a year's time I shall be better prepared to speak, and in seven I shall only be thirty-three. I can do a great deal by contriving matters in seven years. Besides, I am not tied to keep every acre; I can sell some if I choose."
Gertrude went straight to her room without troubling herself to impart what Richard had told her to Mina and Jo. She threw herself on a couch, and burst into a perfect passion of tears.
"I know," she said, speaking aloud in her anger. "He could not deceive me. The money I am to receive as an allowance is the interest of my fortune—the exact sum to which I am lawfully entitled. All the rest I owe to charity. My fortune, indeed! It is a shame! A cruel shame!"
If only the girl's vision had been clearer, if she could but have judged rightly, she would have seen that the only one on whom the shadow of shame rested was herself, because of her unthankfulness for past and present blessings, and worse than ingratitude to the true heart whose unselfish affection only desired to continue them, without even allowing her to know that she owed them to him.
Three days later a tall, graceful girl, dressed in deep mourning and closely veiled, applied in the proper quarter for a sight of the late Mr. Whitmore's will. It was Gertrude, who, being at Salchester, the county town, with Miss Pease, managed to obtain the wished-for opportunity by asking to be left in the cathedral, whilst her gentle chaperone went on a shopping expedition.
"I cannot bear to be in the streets and business places," she said. "I will wait for you here."