These lands I made haste to say
she might keep as a gift from me, since it seemed that I had greater
riches than I could need without them, and this saying of mine pleased
her husband Wilfred Bozard not a little, seeing that it is hard for a
man to give up what he has held for many years.
Then I heard the rest of the story; of my father's sudden death, of how
the coming of the gold had saved Lily from being forced into marriage
with my brother Geoffrey, who afterwards had taken to evil courses which
ended in his decease at the age of thirty-one; of the end of Squire
Bozard, Lily's father and my old enemy, from an apoplexy which took
him in a sudden fit of anger. After this it seemed, her brother being
married to my sister Mary, Lily had moved down to the Lodge, having paid
off the charges that my brother Geoffrey had heaped upon his heritage,
and bought out my sister's rights to it. And here at the Lodge she had
lived ever since, a sad and lonely woman, and yet not altogether an
unhappy one, for she gave much of her time to good works. Indeed she
told me that had it not been for the wide lands and moneys which
she must manage as my heiress, she would have betaken herself to a
sisterhood, there to wear her life away in peace, since I being lost to
her, and indeed dead, as she was assured,--for the news of the wreck
of the carak found its way to Ditchingham,--she no longer thought of
marriage, though more than one gentleman of condition had sought her
hand.
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