"I think otherwise," he retorted. "And it is just as well to be on the
safe side. If my widow marries Lambert, she loses my millions, and they
go to--" He checked himself abruptly. "Never mind who gets them. It is a
person in whom you can take no manner of interest."

Miss Greeby pushed the point of her bludgeon into the spongy ground, and
looked thoughtful. "If Lambert loves Agnes still, which I don't
believe," she observed, after a pause, "he would marry her even if she
hadn't a shilling. Your will excluding him as her second husband is
merely the twisting of a rope of sand, Pine."

"You forget," said the man quickly, "that I declared also, he would have
to marry her in the face of Garvington's opposition."

"In what way?"

"Can't you guess? Garvington only allowed me to marry his sister because
I am a wealthy man. I absolutely bought my wife by helping him, and she
gave herself to me without love to save the family name from disgrace.
She is a good woman, is Agnes, and always places duty before
inclination. Marriage with her pauper cousin meant practically the
social extinction of the Lambert family, and nothing would have remained
but the title. Therefore she married me, and I felt mean at the time in
accepting the sacrifice. But I was so deeply in love with her that I did
so. I love her still, and I am mean enough still to be jealous of this
cousin. She shall never marry him, and I know that Garvington will
appeal to his sister's strong desire to save the family once more; so
that she may not be foolish enough to lose the money. And two millions,
more or less," ended Pine cynically, "is too large a sum to pay for a
second husband."