t of Lady Tallant.
Being a tactless and absolutely frank young person, she had no scruple
in proclaiming her hope that 'old Eliza' would make Lord Gaverick her
heir. This was the more likely, wrote young Lady Gaverick, because the
old lady had lately quarrelled with her own relatives, and never now
asked any of her stuffy provincial cousins to share the dulness of
Castle Gaverick and of the house in Brook Street. If she did not leave
her money to Chris Gaverick, there was not, conceivably, anyone else to
whom she would leave it.

'By the way,' Molly continued, as if it had been an afterthought 'Old
Eliza is immensely interested in you and your cow-boy
husband--ranch-owner is what, I suppose, I ought to call him. She asked
Mrs Gildea so many questions about you both that Joan read her your
account of your honeymoon journey through the Bush, and all the rest of
it. How you can endure such a life is incomprehensible to me--but Aunt
Eliza says it shows you've got some grit in you, and that evidently
your husband has cured you of a lot of ridiculous nonsense--I am
quoting her, so don't be offended, and you needn't show this to
Nature's gentleman, which is what Aunt Eliza calls him. I can't help
feeling though, that it's rather a pity you didn't wait a bit before
taking the Irrevocable Step. I don't know whether you ever heard about
Mrs Willougby Maule's death--eleven months after their marriage.'

No, Bridget had not heard. Molly Gaverick was an uncertain
correspondent, and, no doubt, Joan Gildea and Rosamond Tallant, if they
had known of the event, had thought it wiser, in writing to her, to
suppress the news. For a moment, Lady Bridget sat meditating, and all
the blood seemed to rush from her brain to her heart--she could almost
hear her heart pounding. Then she went on again with Lady Gaverick's
letter.

'It was a motor accident--nothing serious at the time, but the baby was
born prematurely, and she lingered a week or two, and then died. I must
do him the justice to say that he seemed to feel her death very much.
It looked as though, after all, the marriage had been quite a success.
Her money gave him a lift and they were going out a good deal in the
political set. She left her quarter of a million to him, ABSOLUTELY. I
heard that some remote Bagallys were going to contest the will, but
they found that they hadn't a leg to stand upon. I wish now that we
hadn't been so sniffy about W.M. As Chris observed with unconscio