you, miss. I wouldn't;--not for worlds of gold."
And then Mary was left alone to read a second letter from a second
suitor.

"Angel of light!" it began, "but cold as your own fair name." Poor
Mary thought it was very nice and very sweet, and though she was so
much afraid of it that she almost wished it away, yet she read it a
score of times. Stolen pleasures always are sweet. She had not cared
to read those two lines from her own betrothed lord above once, or at
the most twice; and yet they had been written by a good man,--a man
superlatively good to her, and written too with considerable pain.

She sat down all trembling to think of what she was doing; and then,
as she thought, she read the letter again. "Angel of light! but cold
as your own fair name." Alas, alas! it was very sweet to her!

CHAPTER XXXIV

MR. FURNIVAL LOOKS FOR ASSISTANCE

"And you think that nothing can be done down there?" said Mr.
Furnival to his clerk, immediately after the return of Mr. Crabwitz
from Hamworth to London.

"Nothing at all, sir," said Mr. Crabwitz, with laconic significance.

"Well; I dare say not. If the matter could have been arranged at a
reasonable cost, without annoyance to my friend Lady Mason, I should
have been glad; but, on the whole, it will perhaps be better that the
law should take its course. She will suffer a good deal, but she will
be the safer for it afterwards."

"Mr. Furnival, I went so far as to offer a thousand pounds!"

"A thousand pounds! Then they'll think we're afraid of them."

"Not a bit more than they did before. Though I offered the money, he
doesn't know the least that the offer came from our side. But I'll
tell you what it is, Mr. Furnival--. I suppose I may speak my mind."

"Oh, yes! But remember this, Crabwitz; Lady Mason is no more in
danger of losing the property than you are. It is a most vexatious
thing, but there can be no doubt as to what the result will be."

"Well, Mr. Furnival,--I don't know."

"In such matters, I am tolerably well able to form an opinion."

"Oh, certainly!"

"And that's my opinion. Now I shall be very glad to hear yours."

"My opinion is this, Mr. Furnival, that Sir Joseph never made that
codicil."

"And what makes you think so?"

"The whole course of the evidence. It's quite clear there was another
deed executed that day, and witnessed by Bolster and Kenneby. Had
there been two documents for them to witness, they would have
remembered it so s