For this same reason, because it was distasteful, she had never said anything of her contemplated marriage to Pigott, and it was quite unknown in the neighbourhood.  Since the Miss Lee scandal and his consequent disinheritance, nobody had visited Philip Caresfoot, and those who took interest in him or his affairs were few.  Indeed the matter had been kept a dead secret.  But on the seventh of June, being the day previous to the ceremony, Angela went down to her nurse’s cottage and told her what was about to be done, suppressing, however, from various motives, all mention of her agreement with George.  It added to her depression to find that Pigott was unaccountably disturbed at the news.

“Well, miss,” she said,—­“Lord, to think that I sha’n’t be able to call you that no longer—­I haven’t got nothing in particular to say agin it, seeing that sure enough the man’s a-dying, as I has on good authority from my own aunt’s cousin, her that does the servants’ washing up at the Hall, and mighty bad she does it, begging of her pardon for the disparagement, and so he won’t trouble you for long, and somehow it do seem as though you hadn’t got no choice left in the matter, just as though everybody and everything was a-quietly pushing you into it.  But, miss, somehow I don’t like it, to be plain; a marriage as ain’t no marriage ain’t altogether natural like, and in an office, too, along with a man as you would not touch with a pair of tongs, and that man on his last leg.  I’m right down sorry if I makes you feel uncomfortable, dearie; but, bless me, I don’t know how it is, but, when a thing sticks in my mind, I’m as bound to hawk it up as though it were a bone in my throat.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do, nurse, but perhaps you don’t understand all about the property being concerned, and about its having to pass away from my father, if I don’t do this.  I care nothing about the property, but he left it to ‘my generosity!’ Arthur is dead; and he left it to ‘my generosity,’ nurse.  What could I do?”

“Well, miss, you’re acting according to what you thinks right and due to your father, which is more nor I does; and poor, dead Mr. Arthur up in Heaven there will make a note of that, there ain’t no manner of doubt.  And somehow it do seem that things can’t be allowed to go wrong with you, my dear, seeing how you’re a-sacrificing of yourself and of your wishes to benefit others.”

This conversation did not tend to put Angela into better spirits, but she felt that it was now too late to recede.

Whilst Angela was talking to Pigott, Sir John and Lady Bellamy were paying a call at Isleworth.  They found George lying on the sofa in the dining-room, in which, though it was the first week in June, a fire was burning on the hearth.  He bore all the signs of a man in the last stage of consumption.  The hollow cough, the emaciation, and the hectic hue upon his face, all spoke with no uncertain voice.