After the
interview, the notary visited Walter Grierson in his room, where the
young man seemed to have been waiting for him. In ordinary circumstances
it might have appeared strange that a man of business, bound to secrecy,
would divulge the terms of a will to any one, but far more that he
should take means for apprising a nephew that he was deprived of any
share of his uncle's means. Nor could she account for this interview on
any other supposition than that Mr. Ainslie knew of the intentions of
Walter towards his daughter, and that he took this early opportunity of
intimating that a disinherited young man, of the grade of a merchant's
clerk, would not, as a son-in-law, suit the expectations of an ambitious
writer. Yet out of this interview there came to, if not drawn by, her
fancy a glimmer of hope, inasmuch as, if the young man were rejected by
the notary in consequence of the ban of disinheritance, he would be left
to the attractions of her wealth; but this supposition involved the
assumption that her triumph would be over a mind that was mercenary, and
not over a heart predisposed to love; nay, her generosity revolted at
the thought of gratifying her long-concealed passion at the expense of
the sacrificed love of another. That other, too, had a better right to
the object than she herself, in so far that Agnes Ainslie's love had
been returned, while hers had not.
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