Andrews was obliged to confine himself to brief visits, in order to
avoid suspicion; but he managed to impart a fair degree of information
each time- information delivered in a low voice, for Hendon's benefit,
and interlarded with insulting epithets delivered in a louder voice,
for the benefit of other hearers.
So, little by little, the story of the family came out. Arthur had
been dead six years. This loss, with the absence of news from
Hendon, impaired his father's health; he believed he was going to die,
and he wished to see Hugh and Edith settled in life before he passed
away; but Edith begged hard for delay, hoping for Miles's return; then
the letter came which brought the news of Miles's death; the shock
prostrated Sir Richard; he believed his end was very near, and he
and Hugh insisted upon the marriage; Edith begged for and obtained a
month's respite; then another, and finally a third; the marriage
then took place, by the death-bed of Sir Richard. It had not proved
a happy one. It was whispered about the country that shortly after the
nuptials the bride found among her husband's papers several rough
and incomplete drafts of the fatal letter, and had accused him of
precipitating the marriage- and Sir Richard's death, too- by a
wicked forgery. Tales of cruelty to the Lady Edith and the servants
were to be heard on all hands; and since the father's death Sir Hugh
had thrown off all soft disguises and become a pitiless master
toward all who in any way depended upon him and his domains for bread.
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