V."
"On the Saturday morning," Mr. Pendril resumed, "those lines reached me.
I instantly set aside all other business, and drove to the railway. At
the London terminus, I heard the first news of the Friday's accident;
heard it, with conflicting accounts of the numbers and names of the
passengers killed. At Bristol, they were better informed; and the
dreadful truth about Mr. Vanstone was confirmed. I had time to recover
myself before I reached your station here, and found Mr. Clare's son
waiting for me. He took me to his father's cottage; and there, without
losing a moment, I drew out Mrs. Vanstone's will. My object was to
secure the only provision for her daughters which it was now possible to
make. Mr. Vanstone having died intestate, a third of his fortune would
go to his widow; and the rest would be divided among his next of kin.
As children born out of wedlock, Mr. Vanstone's daughters, under the
circumstances of their father's death, had no more claim to a share in
his property than the daughters of one of his laborers in the village.
The one chance left was that their mother might sufficiently recover to
leave her third share to them, by will, in the event of her decease.
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