第171章 MR. COSWAY AND THE LANDLADY.(46)

"She is so entirely shameless," he said, "that I had no difficulty in getting her to speak. And she so cordially hates you that she glories in her own falsehood and treachery.""Of course, she lies," Cosway said bitterly, "when she calls herself Miss Benshaw?""No; she is really the daughter of the man who founded the great house in the City. With every advantage that wealth and position could give her the perverse creature married one of her father's clerks, who had been deservedly dismissed from his situation.

From that moment her family discarded her. With the money procured by the sale of her jewels, her husband took the inn which we have such bitter cause to remember--and she managed the house after his death. So much for the past. Carry your mind on now to the time when our ship brought us back to England. At that date, the last surviving member of your wife's family--her elder brother--lay at the point of death. He had taken his father's place in the business, besides inheriting his father's fortune.

After a happy married life he was left a widower, without children; and it became necessary that he should alter his will.