CHAPTER III THE RESULT—(continued)

Miss Lambert ran back to the house. She made a bee-line for the library, sat down at the writing-table, seized a pen and a sheet of paper, and began writing as if inspired. This is what she wrote, in part:

    "My Dear Mr Hancock,—I have written several letters to you in reply to yours, but I tore them up simply because I found it so difficult to express what I wanted to say....[Pg 300] I can never, never, marry you; I don't think I shall ever marry any one, at least, not for a long time ... deeply, deeply respect you, and father says you are the best man he ever met. Why not let us always be friends?... It's a horrible world, and there are so few people who are really nice in it ... you will quite understand ... etc."

Four pages of this signed,

    "Always your sincere friend,
    "Fanny Lambert."

Now we have seen that Miss Hancock had endeavoured as far as in her lay to help along her brother's interests with Miss Lambert. Yet on the receipt of the above letter the conviction entered the mind of James Hancock, never to be evicted¹, that his sister had, vulgarly speaking, "dished" the affair, and, moreover, that she had done so wittingly and of malice² prepense.

Having gummed and stamped the envelope she went out herself and posted it.

When she came back she found Leavesley waiting for her.

1 evicted   

v.（依法从房屋里或土地上）驱逐，赶出( evict的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• They had evicted their tenants for non-payment of rent. 他们赶走了未交房租的房客。

2 malice   

n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋

参考例句：

• I detected a suggestion of malice in his remarks.我觉察出他说的话略带恶意。
• There was a strong current of malice in many of his portraits.他的许多肖像画中都透着一股强烈的怨恨。