She read these
words:
"DEAR ADMIRAL BARTRAM--When you open my Will (in which you are named my
sole executor), you will find that I have bequeathed the whole residue
of my estate--after payment of one legacy of five thousand pounds--to
yourself. It is the purpose of my letter to tell you privately what the
object is for which I have left you the fortune which is now placed in
your hands.
"I beg you to consider this large legacy as intended--"
She had proceeded thus far with breathless curiosity and interest,
when her attention suddenly failed her. Something--she was too deeply
absorbed to know what--had got between her and the letter. Was it a
sound in the Banqueting-Hall again? She looked over her shoulder at the
door behind her, and listened. Nothing was to be heard, nothing was to
be seen. She returned to the letter.
The writing was cramped and close. In her impatient curiosity to read
more, she failed to find the lost place again. Her eyes, attracted by a
blot, lighted on a sentence lower in the page than the sentence at which
she had left off. The first three words she saw riveted her attention
anew--they were the first words she had met with in the letter which
directly referred to George Bartram.
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