Half an hour afterward Stephen Davenant passed down the stairs on
tiptoe, though the tramp of an armed host could not disturb old Ralph
Davenant now--passed down with his hand pressed against his breast
pocket, in which lay the stolen will. Had the sheet of blue foolscap
been composed of red-hot iron instead of paper, Stephen could not have
felt its presence more distinctly and uncomfortably; it seemed to burn
right through his clothes and scorch his heart; he could almost fancy,
in his overstrained state, that it could be seen through his coat.
He paused a moment outside the library door, one white hand fingering
his pale lips, the other vainly striving to keep away from his breast
pocket, and listened to the tramp, tramp of Jack as he walked up and
down the room. Any other face would have been more endurable than
Jack's, with its fiercely frank gaze and outspoken contempt.
At last he opened the door and entered, his handkerchief in his hand.
Jack stopped and looked at him.
"I have been waiting for you," he said.
"My poor uncle!"
Jack looked at him with keen scrutiny, mingled with unconcealed scorn.
"I have been waiting for you, in case you wished to say anything before
I went."
"What?" murmured Stephen, with admirably feigned surprise and regret.
"You will not go, my dear Jack! not to-night."
"Yes, to-night," said Jack quietly. "I couldn't stop in the house--I
shall go to the inn."
"But----"
"No, thanks!" said Jack, cutting him short.
"Oh, do not thank me," murmured Stephen, meekly. "I may have no right to
offer you hospitality, the house may be yours."
"Well, I think you could give a pretty good guess on that point," said
Jack, bluntly; "but let that pass. I am going to the 'Bush.' If you or
Mr. Hudsley want me--where is Hudsley?" he broke off to inquire.
"Mr. Hudsley is up-stairs sealing up the safe and things," said Stephen
humbly. "He wished me to assist him, but I had rather that he should do
it alone--perhaps you would go through the house with him?"
Jack shook his head.
"As you please," murmured Stephen, with a resigned sigh. "Mr. Hudsley is
quite sufficient; he knows where everything of importance is kept. You
will have some refreshments after your journey, my dear Jack?"
"No, thanks," said Jack; "I want nothing--I couldn't eat anything. I'll
go now."
"Are you going, Mr. Newcombe?" said Mr. Hudsley, entering and looking
from one to the other keenly.
"I am going to the 'Bush;' I shall stay there in case I am wanted."
"The funeral had better be fixed for Saturday. You and Mr. Stephen will
be the chief mourners." Then he turned to Stephen. "I have sealed up
most of the things. Is there anything you can suggest?"
"You know all that is required; we leave everything to you, Mr Hudsley.
I think I may speak for my cousin--may I not, Jack?"
Jack did not reply, but put on his gloves.
"I will go now," he said. "Good-night, Mr. Hudsley."
The old lawyer looked at him keenly as he took his hand.
"I shall find you at the 'Bush?'" he said.
"Yes," replied Jack, and was leaving the room when Stephen rose and
followed him.
"Good-night, my dear Jack," he said. "Will you not shake hands on--on
such an occasion?"
Jack strode to the door and opened it without reply, then turned and, as
if with an effort, took the hand which Stephen had kept extended.
"Good-night," he said, dropping the cold fingers, and strode out.
Stephen looked after him a moment with his meek, long-suffering
expression of face changed into a malignant smile of triumph, and his
hand went up to his breast pocket.
"Good-night, beggar!" he murmured, and closed the door.
Mr. Hudsley was still standing by the library-table, toying absently
with the keys, a thoughtful frown on his brow, which did not grow
any lighter as Stephen entered, making great play with the
pocket-handkerchief.
"I think I also may go now, Mr. Stephen," he said. "Nothing more can be
done to-night. I will be here in the morning with my clerk."
"I suppose nothing more can be done. You have sealed up all papers and
jewels? I am particularly anxious that nothing shall be left informal."
"I don't think there is anything unsealed that should have been."
"A very strange scene, the final one, Mr. Stephen."
"Awful, awful, Mr. Hudsley. My poor uncle seemed quite delirious at the
last."
"Hem!" grunted the old lawyer, putting his hat to his lips and looking
over it at the white, smooth face. "You think he was delirious----"
"Don't you, Mr. Hudsley? Do you think that he was conscious of what he
was saying? You have been his legal adviser and confidant for years; you
would know whether there was any meaning in his wild and incoherent
statement about the will. As you are no doubt aware, my poor uncle never
broached the subject of his intentions to me."
"I know of only one will--that of last year. That will I executed for
him; it is the will locked up in the safe up-stairs. I have a copy at
the office," he added, dryly.
"You--you don't think there is any other--any other later will?" he
asked, softly.
"I didn't think so until an hour ago. I am not sure that I think so now.
Do you?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "My uncle was not the man to draw up a
will with his own hand, and his confidence, and I may say affection for
you, were so great that he would not have gone to any other legal
adviser to do it for him. No, I do not think there is any other will; of
course, I do not know the contents of the will in the safe."
"Of course not," said Mr. Hudsley, in a tone so dry that it seemed to
rasp his throat.
"And yet I cannot understand, my poor uncle's outbreak, except by
attributing it to delirium."
"Hem!" said Mr. Hudsley. "Well, in case there should have been any
meaning and significance in it, my clerk and I will make a careful
search to-morrow."
"Yes," murmured Stephen, "and I devoutly trust that should a later will
be in existence, you may find it."
"I hope we may," said Mr. Hudsley. "Good-night!"
Stephen accompanied him to the door as he had accompanied the doctor and
Jack, and saw him into the brougham, and then turned back into the house
with a look of release, which, however, gradually changed to one of
lurking fear and indefinite dread.
"Conscience makes cowards of us all."
It makes a worse coward of Stephen Davenant than he was naturally.
As he stood in the deserted hall, and looked round, at its vast dimness,
at the carved gallery and staircase, somber and dull for want of
varnish, and listened to the faint, ghostly noises made by the
awe-stricken servants moving to and fro overhead, a chill crept over
him, and he wished that he had kept one of them, even Jack, to bear him
company.
With fearful gaze he peered into the darkness, scarcely daring to cross
the hall and enter the library. For all the stillness, he fancied he
could hear that last shriek of the dying man ringing through the house;
for all the darkness, the slim, bent figure seemed to be moving to and
fro, the dark piercing eyes turned upon him with furious accusation.
Even when he had summoned up courage to enter the library, locking the
door after him, the eyes seemed to follow him, and with a shudder that
shook him from head to foot he poured out a glass of brandy and drank it
down.
The Spirit of Evil certainly invented brandy for cowards.
Stephen set down the empty glass and looked round the room--another man.
He even smiled in a ghostly kind of fashion as he took the will from his
pocket and opened it.
"Poor Jack!" he murmured, with a sardonic display of the white teeth.
"This no doubt makes you master of Hurst Leigh; but Providence has
decreed that the spendthrift shall be disappointed. Yes, I am the humble
instrument chosen. I am----"
He stopped suddenly with a start, for he had been reading as he
soliloquized, and he had come upon words that struck him to the very
heart's core.
Was he dreaming, or had his senses taken leave of him?
With beating heart and white, parched lips he stared at the paper until
the lines of crabbed handwriting danced before his astounded eyes.
If brevity is the soul of wit, old Ralph Davenant's will was wit itself.
It consisted of five paragraphs.
The first was merely the usual preamble declaring the testator to be of
sound mind.
The second ran thus:
"To John Newcombe I will and bequeath the sum of fifty thousand pounds,
the said sum to be realized by the sale or transfer of bonds and stocks,
at the discretion of James Hudsley."
Enough in this to move Stephen, but it paled into insignificance before
what followed:
"To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will and bequeath the set of Black's
sermons in twenty-nine volumes, standing on the second shelf in the
library, having remarked the affection which the said Stephen Davenant
bore the said volumes, and accepting his repeated assertions that his
attendance upon me was wholly disinterested."
An ugly flash and an evil glitter swept over Stephen's white face and
eyes, and his teeth ground together maliciously.
"To each and every one of my servants I bequeath the sum of one hundred
pounds, such sum to be forfeited by each and every one who assumes
mourning for my death, which each and every one has anxiously looked
forward to.
"And lastly, I will and bequeath the remainder of my property of
whatsoever kind, be it money, houses, lands, or property of any
description, to my only daughter and child, Eunice Davenant, the same to
be held in trust for her sole use and benefit by James Hudsley.
"And I hereby inform him, and the world at large, that the said Eunice
Davenant is the only issue of my marriage with Caroline Hatfield; that
the said marriage was celebrated in secret at the Church of Armfield, in
Sussex, in June, 18--. And that the said Eunice Davenant, my daughter,
is in the keeping of one Gideon Rolfe, woodman, of Warden Forest, who
has reared her as his own child, and who is unacquainted with the facts
of my secret marriage, and I decree and appoint James Hudsley sole
guardian, trustee, and ward of the aforesaid Eunice Davenant, and at her
hands I crave forgiveness for my neglect of her mother and herself.
"(Signed) RALPH DAVENANT,
"Hurst Leigh.
"Witness--George Goodman,
"Coachman, Hurst Leigh.
"Martha Goodman,
"Cook, Hurst Leigh."
White, breathless, Stephen held the paper in his clinched hands and
stared at the astounding contents.
Eunice Davenant the squire's daughter.
His overstrained brain refused to realize it.
Old Ralph Davenant married! Married! It was impossible.
_Oh, yes, that was it._ A smile, a ghastly smile shone on his face. _It
was a joke_--a vile, malicious joke, worthy of the crabbed,
misanthropical old man! A villainous joke, set down just to bring about
litigation, and create trouble and confusion between the two young men,
himself and Jack Newcombe. And yet--and the smile died away and left his
face fearful and haggard--and yet that awful fury of the dying man when
he knew that the will had been stolen.
No, it was no jest. The marriage had taken place; there _was_ a
daughter, and she was the heiress of all that immense, untold wealth,
except the fifty thousand pounds left to Jack Newcombe, while he--he,
Stephen Davenant, the next of kin, the man who had been working, lying,
toadying for the money, was left with a set of musty sermons.
Rage filled his heart; stifling, choking with fury, the disappointed
schemer struck the senseless paper with his clinched fist, and ground
his teeth at it; then, suddenly, as if by a swift inspiration, he
remembered that this accursed will, which would reduce him to beggary,
and leave an unknown girl and his hated cousin wealthy, was in his
hands; that he and he only knew of its existence. With a sudden
revulsion of feeling he sprang to his feet, and held the paper at arm's
length and laughed softly at it, as if it were endued with sense, and
could appreciate its helplessness.
Then he drew the candle near, folded the paper into a third of its size,
held it to the candle--and drew it back again, overcome by that
fascination which almost invariably exercises itself on such
occasions--that peculiar reluctance to destroy the thing whose existence
can destroy the possessor.
The flame flickered and licked the frail paper; the smoke curled round
its edge; and yet--and yet he could not destroy it.
Instead, he sat down, and with clinched teeth unfolded the will and
read it--read it again and again, until every word was burned and seared
into his brain.
"Eunice Davenant! Eunice Davenant! Curse her!" he groaned out.
But even as the words left his lips a sound rose, the unmistakable
tap--tap of something--some finger striking the window-pane.
Biting his bloodless lips to prevent himself calling out in his ecstasy
of fear, he thrust the will into his pocket, caught up the candle, swept
the curtains aside, and started back.
The light fell full upon the face of a young girl.