"
Frank changed color, and rose nervously from his chair.
"Are my prospects altered?" he asked. "Are Mr. Vanstone's plans for me
not to be carried out? He told Magdalen his will had provided for her.
She repeate d his words to me; she said I ought to know all that his
goodness and generosity had done for both of us. How can his death make
a change? Has anything happened?"
"Wait till Mr. Pendril comes back from Combe-Raven," said his father.
"Question him--don't question me."
The ready tears rose in Frank's eyes.
"You won't be hard on me?" he pleaded, faintly. "You won't expect me to
go back to London without seeing Magdalen first?"
Mr. Clare looked thoughtfully at his son, and considered a little before
he replied.
"You may dry your eyes," he said. "You shall see Magdalen before you go
back."
He left the room, after making that reply, and withdrew to his study.
The books lay ready to his hand as usual. He opened one of them and set
himself to read in the customary manner. But his attention wandered;
and his eyes strayed away, from time to time, to the empty chair
opposite--the chair in which his old friend and gossip had sat and
wrangled with him good-humoredly for many and many a year past.
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