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.
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