They had no rights--he insisted on that--and any attempt to influence the Crown about the line of succession might endanger the claim.
And now Robert Turold was dead in the midst of his plans--dead when he had almost gained the peak of his dreams.
It seemed incredible, almost impossible.

Death at such a moment assumed an unexpected reality as an actual and tangible mocker of human ambitions.
And this letter with its postscript--what was the meaning of it?
The lawyer knew nothing of Robert Turold's announcement to his family on the previous day.

If he had, it would have intensified his feeling that the letter hinted at some terrible secret hidden behind the thick curtain of his client's strange and sudden death.

The hasty postscript suggested a quickened sense of a growing danger which Robert Turold had seen too late to avert.
What danger?
Mr.Brimsdown could form no idea.

He reflected that he really knew very little of Robert Turold's private life in spite of the long association between them.