“That’s how it always is,” said Mr Summerhayes, without any passion, but with a concentrated sneer in his voice; “a woman who has anything always suspects her husband of an intention to rob her. Though she may have lived with him for years, and known his thoughts and shared his plans, and thought him good enough to be her companion and protector, the moment she recurs to her money he becomes a robber, and nothing is too base for him to do. No,” he went on, breathing out a long breath of indignation apparently, and offended virtue; “I don’t want to alter the deeds—but I want to read over one clause with Gateshead, to make sure it’s all right. You would not like your children to go to law about it after you are dead?” “No,” said Mary, with a slight shiver; her fears and her imagination were roused. She, of course, knew nothing about the law, except a general impression that it was never safe to have anything to do with it. She had, however, an unreasoning faith in the efficacy of anything solemnly signed and witnessed, which, notwithstanding, if anybody threw the least doubt upon that document, changed instantly into a total scepticism and unbelief of any value in it at all. She jumped at conclusions, as is the habit of women; and from the most perfect confidence in the security of Fontanel, instantly plunged into the wildest uneasiness about it, and already saw herself compelled to alienate the inheritance from her children;—and all this because Mr Summerhayes had remarked some expression in one clause which struck him as of doubtful meaning,—at least that was all the actual foundation upon which Mary could build her fears.