He, my beauty Howels--he forge! Why
'ould he be forging? Annwyl! Fie was innocent, Rowland--on my deet, he
was innocent. Oh, bach gen anwyl!'[Footnote: Oh, darling boy!]
Mrs Jenkins wrung her hands and cried bitterly.
'How do you know this, Aunt 'Lizbeth?' said Rowland. 'Tell me calmly,
and then we will see what can be done,'
'Read you that letter. By to-morrow he'll be in all the papers. He--so
clever, so genteel, so rich! And all my Griffey's savings--hundreds of
thousands of pound--nobody do be knowing where they was. Ach a fi! ach a
fi!'
Rowland read a letter from a celebrated London counsel retained by Mr
Rice Rice for Howel, to the effect that Howel had been taken in America
on the very day that his poor wife was planning to wander away in search
of him, and was a prisoner the day she died. He had arrived in London,
and been lodged in Newgate the previous day, the one on which that
letter was written.
Rowland gently told his mother the contents of it.
'Thank God that my child did not live to see this day!' exclaimed Mrs
Prothero.
'Better dead, cousin, than to be living as Howels is!' sobbed Mrs
Griffey. 'In a prison, too, my beauty Howels! But I was wanting to know,
Mr Rowland, when you was going to London? Seure, I do think of going
to-night, or to-morrow morning.
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