Margaret sat down wearily upon the sofa, having muttered some word in answer to Mrs Tom’s apology for having been found at work so soon after her husband’s death.

“Sarah,” she said, “I have come to you to-day because I had something to say to you about business.”

“Oh, to be sure! I never thought for a moment you had come for pleasure, or out of civility, as it might be. Of course I didn’t expect that when I saw you.”

“Sarah, will you come upstairs with me into your own room?”

“Upstairs, Margaret? Oh yes, if you please. We shall be down directly, my dear, and I dare say Margaret will stay to tea. We tea early, because, since you went, we have dined at one.”

Then Mrs Tom led the way up to the room in which Margaret had watched by her dying brother’s bed-side.

“I’m come in here,” said Mrs Tom, again apologising, “because the children had to come out of the room behind the drawing-room. Miss Colza is staying with us, and she and Mary Jane have your room.”

Margaret did not care much for all this; but the solemnity of the chamber in which, when she last saw it, her brother’s body was lying, added something to her sadness at the moment.

“Sarah,” she said, endeavouring to warn her sister-in-law by the tone of her voice that her news was bad news, “I have just come from Mr Slow.”

“He’s the lawyer, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he’s the lawyer. You know what I promised my brother. I went to him to make arrangements for doing it, and when there I heard—oh, Sarah, such dreadful news!”

“He says you’re not to do it, I suppose!” And in the woman’s voice and eyes there were signs of anger, not against Mr Slow alone, but also against Miss Mackenzie. “I knew how it would be. But, Margaret, Mr Slow has got nothing to do with it. A promise is a promise; and a promise made to a dying man! Oh, Margaret!”

“If I had it to give I would give it as surely as I am standing here. When I told my brother it should be so, he believed me at once.”

“Of course he believed you.”

“But Sarah, they tell me now that I have nothing to give.”

“Who tells you so?”

“The lawyer. I cannot explain it all to you; indeed, I do not as yet understand it myself; but I have learned this morning that the property which Walter left me was not his to leave. It had been given away before Mr Jonathan Ball died.”

“It’s a lie!” said the injured woman,—the woman who was the least injured, but who, with her children, had perhaps the best excuse for being ill able to bear the injury. “It must be a lie. It’s more than twenty years ago. I don’t believe and won’t believe that it can be so. John Ball must have something to do with this.”