It was feared lest he should have
been generous to the wife who was believed by them all to have been
so wicked and treacherous to her husband;--and so it was found to be
when the will was read. During the last few months no one near him
had dared to speak to him of his will, for it had been known that
his condition of mind rendered him unfit to alter it; nor had he
ever alluded to it himself. As a matter of course there had been a
settlement, and it was supposed that Lady Laura's own money would
revert to her; but when it was found that in addition to this the
Loughlinter estate became hers for life, in the event of Mr. Kennedy
dying without a child, there was great consternation among the
Kennedys generally. There were but two or three of them concerned,
and for those there was money enough; but it seemed to them now that
the bad wife, who had utterly refused to acclimatise herself to the
soil to which she had been transplanted, was to be rewarded for her
wicked stubbornness. Lady Laura would become mistress of her own
fortune and of all Loughlinter, and would be once more a free woman,
with all the power that wealth and fashion can give.
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