“Mr Winterbourn has been very liberal to me. He has left me everything he can leave away from his heir-at-law. Nothing that is entailed, of course; but there is not very much under the entail. They tell me I will be one of the richest women--a wealthy widow.” “My dear Nelly, I am so very glad; but I am not surprised. Mr Winterbourn had a great sense of justice. He could not do less for you than that.” “But Lady Markham, you have not heard all.” It was not like Nelly Winterbourn to speak in such measured tones. There was not the faintest sign of the _espiègle_ in her voice. Frances, roused by the astonished, alarmed look in her mother’s face, drew a little nearer almost involuntarily, notwithstanding her abstraction in anxieties of her own. “Nelly, do you mind Frances being here?” “Oh, I wish her to be here! It will do her good. If she is going to do--the same as I did, she ought to know.” She made a pause again--Lady Markham meanwhile growing pale with fright and panic, though she did not know what there could be to fear. “There are some people who had begun to think that I was not so well ‘left’ as was expected,” she said; “but they were mistaken. I am very well ‘left.’ I am to have the house in Grosvenor Square, and the Knoll, and all the plate and carriages, and three parts or so of Mr Winterbourn’s fortune--so long as I remain Mr Winterbourn’s widow. He was, as you say, a just man.” There was a pause. But for something in the air which tingled after Nelly’s voice had ceased, the listeners would scarcely have been conscious that anything more than ordinary had been said. Lady Markham said “Nelly?” in a breathless interrogative tone--alarmed by that thrill in the air, rather than by the words, which were so simple in their sound. “Oh yes; he had a great sense of justice. So long as I remain Mrs Winterbourn, I am to have all that. It was his, and I was his, and the property is to be kept together. Don’t you see, Lady Markham?--Sarah knew it, and I might have known, had I thought. He had a great respect for the name of Winterbourn--not much, perhaps, for anything else.” She paused a little, then added: “That’s all. I wished you to know.” “Oh my dear,” cried Lady Markham, “is it possible--is it possible? You--debarred from marrying, debarred from everything--at your age!” “Oh, I can do anything I please,” cried Nelly. “I can go to the bad if I please. He does not say so long as I behave myself--only so long as I remain the widow Winterbourn. I told you they would all call me so. Well, they can do it! That’s what I am to be all my life--the widow Winterbourn.” “Nelly--O Nelly,” cried Lady Markham, throwing her arms round her visitor. “Oh, my poor child! And how can I tell--how am I to tell----?”