One of the witnesses was a clerk, who returned yesterday from South America, where he had been gone for several months.

The other is lying ill at his home in Westchester, but I have sent to-day and had his deposition taken.

It is all in order, and there can be no dispute." I think at that moment I should have been glad if it had been found invalid.

There was something so inevitable and final in Richard's plain and practical words.
Evidently a great change had come in my life, and I could not help it if I would.

I could not but feel the separation from the person upon whom I had leaned so long, and who had done everything for me, and I knew this separation was to be a final one; Richard's words left no doubt of that.
"What you'd better do," he said, leaning by the mantelpiece, "is to tell the servants about this--this--change in your plans, to-morrow; unpack, and settle the house to stay here for the present.