"
"Will you take a seat, Mr. Pendril? You wished to see me in this room, I
believe?"
"Only in this room, because Mr. Vanstone's papers are kept here, and I
may find it necessary to refer to some of them."
After that formal interchange of question and answer, they sat down
on either side of a table placed close under the window. One waited
to speak, the other waited to bear. There was a momentary silence. Mr.
Pendril broke it by referring to the young ladies, with the customary
expressions of sympathy. Miss Garth answered him with the same ceremony,
in the same conventional tone. There was a second pause of silence. The
humming of flies among the evergreen shrubs under the window penetrated
drowsily into the room; and the tramp of a heavy-footed cart-horse,
plodding along the high-road beyond the garden, was as plainly audible
in the stillness as if it had been night.
The lawyer roused his flagging resolution, and spoke to the purpose when
he spoke next.
"You have some reason, Miss Garth," he began, "to feel not quite
satisfied with my past conduct toward you, in one particular. During
Mrs. Vanstone's fatal illness, you addressed a letter to me, making
certain inquiries; which, while she lived, it was impossible for me to
answer.
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