Mr. Clare,
remembering that his friend had been married in the March of that year,
at once asked when the will had been executed: receiving the reply
that it had been made five years since; and, thereupon, astounded Mr.
Vanstone by telling him bluntly that the document was waste paper in the
eye of the law. Up to that moment he, like many other persons, had
been absolutely ignorant that a man's marriage is, legally as well as
socially, considered to be the most important event in his life; that
it destroys the validity of any will which he may have made as a single
man; and that it renders absolutely necessary the entire re-assertion
of his testamentary intentions in the character of a husband. The
statement of this plain fact appeared to overwhelm Mr. Vanstone.
Declaring that his friend had laid him under an obligation which he
should remember to his dying day, he at once left the cottage, at once
returned home, and wrote me this letter."
He handed the letter open to Miss Garth. In tearless, speechless grief,
she read these words:
"MY DEAR PENDRIL--Since we last wrote to each other an extraordinary
change has taken place in my life. About a week after you went away,
I received news from America which told me that I was free.
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