Children of the rich -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
What was the matter with Elaine? The sheet of paper fell from her
hand. She reeled as if attacked by sudden vertigo; she leaned against
the table as if to save herself from falling; she went quite white;
she stared about her as if afraid. Six hundred and twenty-seven pounds
in gold! ownerless! practically ownerless, for how could it be said to
have an owner when the only creature who knew of its existence was
dumb and dying? Six hundred and twenty-seven pounds! what might not
that money mean to her?--and--and to some one else who had grown of
late to be almost more to her than herself? She turned again to clutch
at it; when she saw that on the writing-table there still was
something else; a roll of notes, enclosed in a rubber band; banknotes,
if she could believe her eyes. She picked them up, to make sure;
heedlessly, fearlessly this time; the other things had proved so
innocuous that, already, she had grown careless. They were bank-notes,
unmistakably; and beneath them, was the inevitable half-sheet of
paper. This time it was covered with quite an array of figures, in
Donald Lindsay's neat handwriting. Seemingly, according to those
figures, the roll of notes contained forty at £5, fifty at £10,
twenty-five at £20, six at £50, ten at £100; in all one hundred and
twenty-one notes of the value of £2500. The numbers were given of
every note of each denomination; Elaine's quick eyes perceived that
the numbers were by no means consecutive, from which she deduced that
they had not been issued from a bank all at one time, but had come
together at different dates, from various quarters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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