"'No,' the old woman answered very short. 'It is just that.'
"And when the girl, having dressed hastily, came down to Robert Evans' room, she found that this was pretty nearly all they would tell her. 'You will go to Mrs. Richard Evans, who lives at Islington,' he said, as if he had been thinking about it. 'She is my second cousin, and will find house-room for you, and make no charge whatever. To-morrow you will take this packet to the address upon it, and the next day a packet will be returned to you, which you will bring back to me. I am not well to-day, and I want to have the matter settled, yes, indeed.'
"'But could not some one else go, if you are not well?' she objected, 'and I will stop and take care of you.'
"He grew very angry at that. 'Do as you are bidden, girl,' he said. 'I shall see the doctor to-day, and for the rest, Gwen can do for me. I am well enough. Do you look to the papers. Richard Evans owes me money, and will make no charge for your living.'
"So Miss Peggy had her breakfast, and in a wonderfully short time, as it seemed to her, she was on the way to London, with plenty of leisure for thinking--very likely for doubting and fearing as well. She had not seen her sweetheart, that was one thing. She had been despatched in a hurry, that was another. And then, to be sure, the big town was strange to her.
"However, nothing happened there, I may tell you. But on the third morning she received a short note from Gwen Madoc, and suddenly rose from breakfast with Mrs. Richard, her face very white. There was news in the letter--news of which all the neighborhood for miles round Court was full. Robert Evans, if you will believe it, was dead. After ailing for a few hours he had died, with only Gwen Madoc to smooth his pillow.
"It was late when she reached the nearest station to Court on her way back, and found a pony trap waiting. She was stepping into it when Mr. Griffith Hughes, the lawyer, saw her, and came up to speak.
"'I am sorry to have bad news for you, Miss McNeill,' he said, and he spoke nicely, for he was a kind man, and, what with the shock and the long journey, she was looking very pale.
"Oh, yes,' she answered, with a sort of weary surprise; 'I know it already. That is why I am come home--to Court, I mean.'
"He saw that she was thinking only of Robert Evans' death, which was not what was in his mind. 'It is about the will,' he said in a whisper, though he need not have been so careful, for every one in the neighbourhood had learned about it from Gwen Madoc. 'It is a cruel will. I would not have made it for him, my dear. He has left Court to the Llewellyn Evanses, and the money between the Evanses of Nant and the Evan Bevans.'