It was a relief to every one when Mr. Pendril
spoke.
"Mr. Clare has told you already," he began, "that I am the bearer of bad
news. I am grieved to say, Miss Garth, that your doubts, when I last
saw you, were better founded than my hopes. What that heartless elder
brother was in his youth, he is still in his old age. In all my unhappy
experience of the worst side of human nature, I have never met with
a man so utterly dead to every consideration of mercy as Michael
Vanstone."
"Do you mean that he takes the whole of his brother's fortune, and makes
no provision whatever for his brother's children?" asked Miss Garth.
"He offers a sum of money for present emergencies," replied Mr. Pendril,
"so meanly and disgracefully insufficient that I am ashamed to mention
it."
"And nothing for the future?"
"Absolutely nothing."
As that answer was given, the same thought passed, at the same moment,
through Miss Garth's mind and through Norah's. The decision, which
deprived both the sisters alike of the resources of fortune, did not
end there for the younger of the two. Michael Vanstone's merciless
resolution had virtually pronounced the sentence which dismissed Frank
to China, and which destroyed all present hope of Magdalen's marriage.
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