with a favorable opinion of Mr. Pendril.  He confirmed the doctors’ interpretation of the law in general terms only; expressed his intention of waiting at the cottage in the hope that a change for the better might yet enable Mrs. Vanstone to see him; and closed his letter without the slightest explanation of his motives, and without a word of reference to the question of the existence, or the non-existence, of Mr. Vanstone’s will.

The marked caution of the lawyer’s reply dwelt uneasily on Miss Garth’s mind, until the long-expected event of the day recalled all her thoughts to her one absorbing anxiety on Mrs. Vanstone’s account.

Early in the evening the physician from London arrived.  He watched long by the bedside of the suffering woman; he remained longer still in consultation with his medical brethren; he went back again to the sick-room, before Miss Garth could prevail on him to communicate to her the opinion at which he had arrived.

When he called out into the antechamber for the second time, he silently took a chair by her side.  She looked in his face; and the last faint hope died in her before he opened his lips.

“I must speak the hard truth,” he said, gently.  “All that can be done has been done.  The next four-and-twenty hours, at most, will end your suspense.  If Nature makes no effort in that time—­I grieve to say it—­you must prepare yourself for the worst.”

Those words said all:  they were prophetic of the end.

The night passed; and she lived through it.  The next day came; and she lingered on till the clock pointed to five.  At that hour the tidings of her husband’s death had dealt the mortal blow.  When the hour came round again, the mercy of God let her go to him in the better world.  Her daughters were kneeling at the bedside as her spirit passed away.  She left them unconscious of their presence; mercifully and happily insensible to the pang of the last farewell.

Her child survived her till the evening was on the wane and the sunset was dim in the quiet western heaven.  As the darkness came, the light of the frail little life—­faint and feeble from the first—­flickered and went out.  All that was earthly of mother and child lay, that night, on the same bed.  The Angel of Death had done his awful bidding; and the two Sisters were left alone in the world.

CHAPTER XII.

EARLIER than usual on the morning of Thursday, the twenty-third of July, Mr. Clare appeared at the door of his cottage, and stepped out into the little strip of garden attached to his residence.

After he had taken a few turns backward and forward, alone, he was joined by a spare, quiet, gray-haired man, whose personal appearance was totally devoid of marked character of any kind; whose inexpressive face and conventionally-quiet manner presented nothing that attracted approval and nothing that inspired dislike.  This was Mr. Pendril—­this was the man on whose lips hung the future of the orphans at Combe-Raven.