"Mr. Corbet not down yet!" she exclaimed.
And then Ellinor had to tell her the outline of
the facts so soon likely to be made public; that
Mr. Corbet and she had determined to break off
their engagement; and that Mr. Corbet had
accordingly betaken himself to the parsonage;
and that she did not expect him to return to
Ford Bank. Miss Monro's astonishment was
unbounded. She kept going over and over all
the little circumstances she had noticed during
this last visit, only on yesterday, in fact which
she could not reconcile with the notion that the
two, apparently so much attached to each other
but a few hours before, were now to be for ever
separated and estranged. Ellinor sickened under
the torture; which yet seemed like torture in a
dream, from which there must come an awakening
and a relief. She felt as if she could not
bear any more; yet there was more to bear. Her
father, as it turned out, was very ill, and had
been so all night long; he had evidently had
some kind of attack on the brain, whether
apoplectic or paralytic it was for the doctors to
decide. In the hurry and anxiety of this day of
misery succeeding to misery she almost forgot to
wonder whether Ralph were still at the
parsonage—still in Hamley; it was not till the
coming visit of the physician that she learnt that
he had been seen by Dr. Moore as he was taking
his place in the morning mail to London. Dr.
Moore alluded to his name as to a thought that
would cheer and comfort the fragile girl during
her night-watch by her father's bedside. But
Miss Monro stole out after Dr. Moore to warn
him off the subject for the future, crying bitterly
over the forlorn position of her darling as she
spoke—crying as Ellinor had never yet been able
to cry; though all the time in the pride of her
sex she was endeavouring to persuade the
doctor it was all Ellinor's doing, and the wisest
and best thing she could have done, as he was
not good enough for her, only a poor barrister
struggling for a livelihood. Like many other
kind-hearted people, she fell into the blunder of
lowering the moral character of those whom it is
their greatest wish to exalt. But Dr. Moore
knew Ellinor too well to believe all that Miss
Monro said; she would never act from interested
motives, and was all the more likely to cling to
a man because he was down, and unsuccessful.
No! there had been a lovers' quarrel; and it
could not have happened at a sadder time.

Before the June roses were in full bloom, Mr.
Wilkins was dead. He had left his daughter to
the guardianship of Mr. Ness by some will made
years ago; but Mr. Ness had caught a
rheumatic fever with his Easter fishings, and had
been unable to be moved home from the little
Welsh inn where he had been staying when he
was taken ill. Since this last attack, Mr.
Wilkins's mind had been much affected; he often
talked strangely and wildly; but he had rare
intervals of quietness and full possession of his
senses. At one of these times he must have
written a half-finished pencil note, which his
nurse found under his pillow after his death, and
brought to Ellinor. Through her tear-blinded
eyes she read the weak faltering words:

"I am very ill. I sometimes think I shall
never get better, so I wish to ask your pardon
for what I said the night before I was taken ill.
I am afraid my anger made mischief between
you and Ellinor, but I think you will forgive a
dying man. If you will come back and let all
be as it used, I will make any apology you may
require. If I go she will be so very friendless;
and I have looked to you to care for her ever since
you first——" There came some illegible and
incoherent writing, ending with, "From my death-bed
I adjure you to stand her friend; I will beg
pardon on my knees for anything——"

And there strength had failed; the paper and
pencil had been laid aside to be resumed at some
time when the brain was clearer, the hand
stronger. Ellinor kissed the letter, reverently
folded it up, and laid it among her sacred
treasures, by her mother's half-finished sewing, and
a little curl of her baby-sister's golden hair.

Mr. Johnson, who had been one of the
trustees for Mrs. Wilkins's marriage-settlement, a
respectable solicitor in the county town, and Mr.
Ness, had been appointed as executors of his
will, and guardians to Ellinor. The will itself
had been made several years before, when he
had imagined himself the possessor of a
handsome fortune, the bulk of which he bequeathed
to his only child. By her mother's
marriage-settlement Ford Bank was held in trust for the
children of the marriage; the trustees being Sir
Frank Holster and Mr. Johnson. There were
legacies to his executors; a small annuity to
Miss Monro, with the expression of a hope that
it might be arranged for her to continue living
with Ellinor as long as the latter remained
unmarried; all his servants were remembered,
Dixon especially, and most liberally.

What remained of the handsome fortune once
possessed by the testator? The executors asked
in vain; there was nothing. They could hardly
make out what had become of it, in such utter
confusion were all the accounts, both personal
and official. Mr. Johnson was hardly restrained
by his compassion for the orphan from throwing
up the executorship in disgust. Mr. Ness roused
himself from his scholar-like abstraction to labour
at the examination of books, parchments, and
papers, for Ellinor's sake. Sir Frank Holster
professed himself only a trustee for Ford Bank.

Meanwhile she went on living at Ford Bank,
quite unconscious of the state of her father's
affairs, but sunk into a deep plaintive melancholy,
which affected her looks and the tones of her
voice in such a manner as to distress Miss Monro
exceedingly. It was not that the good lady did
not quite acknowledge the great cause her pupil
had for grieving—deserted by her lover, her
father dead—but that she could not bear the
outward signs of how much these sorrows had
told on Ellinor. Her love for the poor girl was
infinitely distressed by seeing the daily wasting