Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/225

 lived quite comfortably on the money allowed him by Bessie, and Mr. Winnery grew to have quite an affection for him, and to share the pride which Bessie found in supporting the cousin of a duke.

It might have gone on forever thus but that Mr. Winnery was, when all was said and done, an old man, and drinking and eating was certain to take its toll. One night while Bessie sat in her wrapper reading John Bull on the opposite side of the fire from Mr. Winnery she noticed that the newspaper with which he covered his face when he slept was very still and that his hands hung down in a queer fashion. She went over to him and lifted the newspaper. He was quite dead. He had simply gone to sleep in the midst of his happiness, warm and content after a good dinner, with his Bessie sitting opposite him.

What might have been called the Last Phase of Bessie began on the day after the funeral when the will was read. Save for the money to continue the income of the maiden sisters living in Scarborough, the income of the entire fortune was left to Bessie Cudlip Winnery. There was no provision made for the nephew who lived in Brinoë, save the ironical one that on the death of Bessie Cudlip Winnery, the entire fortune was to go to him. And Bessie was more than ten years younger than her nephew and in the most robust of health and spirits. But she was of a forgiving nature, and understanding perhaps the nephew's agitation at the time of her marriage to Mr. Winnery, she arranged that