"We tried to make peace with our father after the weddings, but he utterly refused to see us, and we were obliged to start for India without having received his forgiveness. Within a year we had news of his death. I think he had been in failing health for some time, and perhaps on that account had been the more loath to part with us; but he had shown us so little tenderness that we had never realized that he wished for our sympathy or affection. Now that I have a child of my own, I regret that I was not a better daughter to him. In his will he showed that he had not pardoned either us or our husbands. He left only a small annuity each to Madeleine and myself, and the bulk of his estate in trust for his first grandchild. My sister Madeleine's little girl was born a fortnight before mine, so it was she, and not Alison, who inherited her grandfather's fortune. I was very angry at the injustice of the proceeding. It seemed to me monstrously unfair that my little one, because she came into the world a fortnight too late, should be deprived of what in all equity ought to have been hers. I was the elder of the twins, and I considered that any preference should have been in my favour. I was anxious to bring a lawsuit, and try to upset the will and cause the estate to be equally divided between my sister and myself, but our solicitor assured me I had no legal case, and should only involve myself in endless proceedings and costs. Madeleine and I were too much attached to each other to have an open quarrel, and before her I managed to hide my bitter disappointment. We were about to be separated, for my husband was returning to England, while hers was still remaining in India. I was thankful afterwards that we had parted on such good terms, for I never saw her again. Only a few days after our steamer started she succumbed to a sudden epidemic of cholera that swept over the place where they were living, and the telegram announcing her death met me at Port Said. I had loved her dearly, and the blow was cruel. But there was a harder one still in store for me. My husband, whose ill health had been the cause of our leaving India, became rapidly worse, and before I even realized the extent of the danger, he too was taken from me. In a single year I had lost father, sister, and husband, and at twenty-three I found myself a young widow, with an only child.