The answer she received was guarded in the extreme: it did not impress her 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.