“Better?”
“Thank you,” said he. “Though I’m ashamed of myself for sleeping all this time.”
“Jolly good thing you did go to sleep,” replied Clementina. “It has probably saved you from a breakdown. You were on the verge of one.”
“Can I help you with any of the unhappy arrangements that have to be made in these circumstances?”
“Made ’em,” said Clementina. “Sit down.”
Quixtus obeyed, meekly. He wore an air of great lassitude, like a man who has just risen from a bed of sickness. He passed his hands over his eyes:
“There was a sealed packet, if I remember rightly, and a child. I think we might see now what the packet contains.”
“Are you fit to read it?” she asked. He smiled vaguely, for her tone softened the abruptness of the question.
“I am anxious to do so,” he replied.
Clementina opened the envelope and drew out the two documents, the letter and the will, and read them aloud. Neither added greatly to the information given by Poynter. Hammersley charged them as his two oldest, most loved and trusted friends, to regard themselves as the parents and guardians of his orphaned child, to whom he bequeathed a small but comfortable fortune, to be administered by them jointly in trust, until she should marry or reach the age of twenty-five years. No mention being made of the dead wife, her identity still remained a mystery. Like Clementina, Quixtus had not heard of his marriage, could think of no woman whom, six years ago, while he was in England, he could have married.