I
believe in the end Theobald died, and the Lord Chancellor (who had become
a widower a few weeks earlier) made her an offer, which, however, she
firmly but not ungratefully declined; she should ever, she said, continue
to think of him as a friend--at this point the cook came in, saying the
butcher had called, and what would she please to order.
I think Theobald must have had an idea that there was something behind
the bequest to me, but he said nothing about it to Christina. He was
angry and felt wronged, because he could not get at Alethea to give her a
piece of his mind any more than he had been able to get at his father.
"It is so mean of people," he exclaimed to himself, "to inflict an injury
of this sort, and then shirk facing those whom they have injured; let us
hope that, at any rate, they and I may meet in Heaven." But of this he
was doubtful, for when people had done so great a wrong as this, it was
hardly to be supposed that they would go to Heaven at all--and as for his
meeting them in another place, the idea never so much as entered his
mind.
One so angry and, of late, so little used to contradiction might be
trusted, however, to avenge himself upon someone, and Theobald had long
since developed the organ, by means of which he might vent spleen with
least risk and greatest satisfaction to himself.
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