xed.

"I don't understand exactly in what way the will has displeased you,"
she said. "There was a great deal of it that I hardly took in. But in
any case there is nothing for me to do. As you know, my services have
not been asked, and certainly there is no place for them. I have
nothing whatever to do with the executing of Lord Hurdly's will.
Indeed, my plans are all made to return to America immediately."

"I cannot be surprised at your decision," he said, with a certain
resentment in his voice which she did not understand. "Certainly it
would be natural for you to wish to shake off the dust of this land
from your feet. But wherever you may choose to live for the future,
it is my duty to see that you live as becomes the widow of Lord
Hurdly, and it is for this purpose that I have hastened to get here
before you should be gone."

All was now clear, and with the illumination which had come to her
from these words of his the color flooded her pale cheeks. Her first
sensation was of keenly wounded pride.

"You might have spared yourself such haste," she said. "If you had
taken the slight trouble to write to me, I could have saved you the
long and hurried journey. So far from wishing to have more money than
what I am legally entitled to, it is my purpose and decision to take
nothing. I have of my own enough to live upon in the simple way in
which I shall live for the future. Did you think so ill of me as to
suppose that I would wish to grasp at more than my husband saw fit to
leave me--or to take money at your hands?"

It was her instinct of pride which had caused her to use the words
"my husband," which another instinct at the same moment urged her to
repudiate. But pride was now the uppermost feeling of her heart, and
it supplied her with a sudden and sufficient strength for this hour's
need.

"This is in no sense a question between you and your late husband,"
said Horace. (Was there not in him also a certain hesitation at that
word, and did not the same feeling as in her compel him to its use?)
"Nor is it a question between you and me. The obviously simple issue
is what propriety demands as to the manner in which the widow of
Lord Hurdly is provided for. It belongs to my own sense of the
dignity of my position that the late Lord Hurdly's widow should be
situated as becomes her name and title, and I am determined to see
that this is done."

"Determined," she said, a certain defiance in her quiet tone, "is not
t