Mrs. Lecount smiled resignedly, and referred to her Draft.

“I see the word ‘decease’ written here,” she remarked.  “Perhaps, Mr. Noel, you would prefer it?”

“Yes,” he said; “I prefer ‘Decease.’  It doesn’t sound so dreadful as ‘Death.’”

“Let us go on with the letter, sir.”

She resumed her dictation, as follows: 

“...in either of those cases, I make it a condition of his receiving the legacy that he shall be married within the period of Six calendar months from the day of my decease; that the woman he marries shall not be a widow; and that his marriage shall be a marriage by Banns, publicly celebrated in the parish church of Ossory—­where he has been known from his childhood, and where the family and circumstances of his future wife are likely to be the subject of public interest and inquiry.”

“This,” said Mrs. Lecount, quietly looking up from the Draft, “is to protect Mr. George, sir, in case the same trap is set for him which was successfully set for you.  She will not find her false character and her false name fit quite so easily next time—­no, not even with Mr. Bygrave to help her!  Another dip of ink, Mr. Noel; let us write the next paragraph.  Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Lecount went on.

“If your nephew fails to comply with these conditions—­that is to say, if being either a bachelor or a widower at the time of my decease, he fails to marry in all respects as I have here instructed him to marry, within Six calendar months from that time—­it is my desire that he shall not receive the legacy, or any part of it.  I request you, in the case here supposed, to pass him over altogether; and to give the fortune left you in my will to his married sister, Mrs. Girdlestone.

“Having now put you in possession of my motives and intentions, I come to the next question which it is necessary to consider.  If, when you open this letter, your nephew is an unmarried man, it is clearly indispensable that he should know of the conditions here imposed on him, as soon, if possible, as you know of them yourself.  Are you, under these circumstances, freely to communicate to him what I have here written to you?  Or are you to leave him under the impression that no such private expression of my wishes as this is in existence; and are you to state all the conditions relating to his marriage, as if they emanated entirely from yourself?

“If you will adopt this latter alternative, you will add one more to the many obligations under which your friendship has placed me.

“I have serious reason to believe that the possession of my money, and the discovery of any peculiar arrangements relating to the disposal of it, will be objects (after my decease) of the fraud and conspiracy of an unscrupulous person.  I am therefore anxious—­for your sake, in the first place—­that no suspicion of the existence of this letter should be conveyed to the mind of the person to whom I allude.  And