I can only acknowledge that I do not look to the future with the absolute despair which you naturally felt when I last saw you." Mrs.Presty laid the letter down, privately resolving to write to Randal, and tell him to keep his convictions for the future to himself.
A glance at her daughter's face warned her, if she said anything, to choose a new subject.
The second letter still remained unnoticed.

"Shall we see what the lawyer says ?" she suggested--and opened the envelope.

The lawyer had nothing to say.

He simply inclosed a letter received at his office.
Mrs.Presty had long passed the age at which emotion expresses itself outwardly by a change of color.

She turned pale, nevertheless, when she looked at the second letter.
The address was in Herbert Linley's handwriting..