FELIX GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY.
Humbly they stood before the minister and his son, and there was
silence for a moment or two in the gloomy study. From the window of
the study the parish churchyard could be plainly seen, and Felix,
looking through the window while the conversation between his father
and the housekeeper was taking place, saw a coffin lying by the side
of a newly-made grave, and a little group of persons standing about it
in the sun's light. This group was composed of Gribble junior and his
wife, and Mrs. Podmore and her little Polly. Gribble junior's heir was
also there, under shade. The youngster was asleep on the turf at the
foot of a tall and weary tombstone, on which was an inscription to the
effect that the soul that had once animated the clay beneath it had
assuredly gone to the place where the wicked ceased from troubling and
the weary are at rest. The letters which recorded this desirable
consummation of a life's labour were nearly worn away by time, and the
woeful tombstone, as it leaned towards the earth, exhibited in its
attitude a yearning to fall upon its face, and to go also to the place
where the weary are at rest. Over the head of Gribble junior's heir a
large umbrella was spread to protect him from the sun. The umbrella
served two purposes--it kept the child in shade, and advertised the
business. For glaring upon the Cambridge blue silk was an
advertisement, in yellow paint, of Gribble junior's Royal Umbrella and
Parasol Hospital; and the proprietor of that establishment,
complacently surveying the announcement, did not seem to think that it
was at all out of place in the old churchyard. Little Polly, to whom
everything that she had never seen before possessed surpassing
interest, was looking about her with that solemn wonder which is often
seen on children's faces. The gravedigger, a young man who should have
known better, stood with his foot resting upon his spade; and the
group was completed by two very old men who took an interest in
funerals, and three dirty children with the usual dirty pinafores and
the usual staring eyes.
The occasion was made quite a holiday by Mrs. Podmore and Mrs. Gribble
junior. When Lily's Mather died, there was much sympathy expressed for
her and her grandfather in the crowded house in Soho; and the women,
notwithstanding they had ordinarily not a minute to spare from their
pressing duties, busied themselves unostentatiously in assisting Lily
and the old man through their trouble. Thus, Mrs. Podmore took upon
herself Lily's household work, and cleaned and tidied the rooms, and
cooked the meals for them until after the funeral; and Mrs. Gribble
junior, being a perfect marvel with her needle, set to work at once
making a black dress and bonnet for Lily. This quick practical
sympathy is very common and very beautiful among the poor. Then Mrs.
Podmore and Mrs. Gribble junior had settled that they ought to go to
the funeral, which was to take place somewhere near Gravesend, in
accordance with the wish of the dying woman. They spoke of it to their
respective husbands. Gribble junior said, "We'll all go; and we'll
take the young 'un. He's never been to a funeral; it'll open up his
ideas, as a body might say." As if such an opportunity should, for the
baby's sake, on no account be allowed to slip. Mrs. Podmore told _her_
husband when they were in bed. He had come home, worn and tired out as
usual, and while his wife expressed her views, he held his little
treasure--his darling Pollypod--close to his breast. He had a very
perfect love for his child.
"All right--old woman," he said, in his weary manner, when his wife
had finished. "Go. It will be--a holiday for you."
"And Polly?" said Mrs. Podmore "What shall I do with Polly?"
"What shall you do--with Pollypod?" he repeated drowsily, hugging the
child. "Take her with you. It will be a treat--for her. My Pollypod!
She'll smell--the country--and see--the sun." He was falling off to
sleep, when he pulled himself up suddenly, and said, "And look
here--old woman! Don't bother about--my dinner. I'll make
shift--somehow."
"Lord bless you, Jim!" exclaimed Mrs. Podmore: "I shall have a nice
meat-pudden for you. My man ain't going without his dinner."
So it was settled, and when Mrs. Podmore, the next morning, spoke of
it to old Wheels, he was grateful for the attention, and said there
would be plenty of room in the coach for them all. Mrs. Podmore's
great difficulty was a black dress to go in; she could not go in a
coloured dress, and could not afford to buy a new one. But on the day
of the funeral she made her appearance in black, having borrowed her
plumes of a neighbour who was in mourning; Pollypod went in colours.
As they had nearly twenty miles to go, the coach was at the door early
in the morning. All the neighbours round about came into the street to
gaze at it and the mourners. They stood and talked in whispers. Their
sympathy was chiefly reserved for Lily and the coffin. "Hush-sh-sh!
There's the coffin. Hush-sh-sh!" as if their very whispers might
disturb the dead. Then, when Lily came out, the women shook their
heads, and said, "Poor dear! Poor dear! How pale she is! Ah, she
didn't look like that the other night at the White Rose." Presently
they expressed surprise because the children were going, but said, a
moment afterwards, "Ah, well, it will be a nice ride for them."
Gribble junior's father, master of the chandler-shop, and foe to
co-operation, having been assured by his son that his late lodger was
not to be buried by co-operation, also patronised the starting of the
funeral with his presence. He had a corrugated face, not unlike the
outside of an old walnut-shell, and it would have been difficult to
have persuaded him that there was hope of salvation for the deceased
if the coffin had been a co-operative production.
The party being large a one, a coach of an extra size had been
provided. Gribble junior rode outside the coach, with the driver; the
others, each mother with her child on her lap, and the coffin, were
inside. He liked his position on the box, and thoroughly enjoyed the
ceremony. As he sat there, he looked round with a sad gentle smile
upon his neighbours. The day was fine, and the coach moved slowly
through the narrow streets, as was befitting and proper. Common as the
sight is, everybody turns his head or pauses for a moment to look at a
coach with a coffin in it. Women come to the windows and gaze at it
with a kind of quiet fascination; dirty children suspend their games
and stand in admiration at the corners of the streets; idle
shopkeepers come to their doors in their aprons; and mothers bring
their babies to see the coach go by--truly suggestive of the cradle
and the grave. Gribble junior relished this attention on the part of
the public. He took it in some measure as a tribute to himself, and
even derived satisfaction from the thought that many of the persons
who stopped and gazed must believe him to be a near relative of the
deceased. He was as little of a hypocrite as it is in the nature of
human beings to be, but he deemed it necessary to his position to
assume a mournful demeanour; and he did so accordingly, and sighed
occasionally. When the coach got away from the narrow streets, it
moved faster. Gribble junior had brought a Cambridge blue-silk
umbrella with him, which, however, he did not open on the journey. He
and his wife and Mrs. Podmore enjoyed the ride amazingly. To escape
for a few hours from the narrow labyrinths of Soho was good; to get
into a little open country where grass and flowers were growing and
blooming was better; and to see bright colour come to the children's
cheeks and bright sparkles to their eyes was best of all. It was as
Mr. Podmore said, a treat for them. The wives had brought sandwiches
and bread-and-butter with them, and water in ginger-beer bottles.
(Gribble junior, outside the coach, had two bottles filled with
beer--four-penny ale--which he and the driver drank and enjoyed.) The
women offered part of their refreshments to the relatives of the dead
woman, but not one of the mourners could eat. In the early part of the
journey, little Pollypod was inclined to show her enjoyment of the
ride somewhat demonstratively, but Mrs. Podmore whispered to the
child, "Hush, Polly dear! Lily's mother's in there!" pointing to the
coffin. Pollypod had blue eyes, very bright, though not very large;
but the brightness went out of them and they grew larger as she
learned this fact and looked at the coffin. A little while afterwards,
having watched and waited and debated the point with herself, without
being able to come to a satisfactory conclusion, Pollypod asked why
Lily's mother did not get out of the box.
"_I_ would!" said Pollypod. "If I was shut up there, I'd cry, and
you'd let me out; wouldn't you? Wicked box! Father couldn't play with
me if I was shut up in you!" And listened and wondered why the clay in
the coffin did not cry to escape.
Once during the ride, Lily nursed Polly for comfort, and the child,
with her lips to Lily's ear, said,
"Lily, I want to know!"
It was one of Pollypod's peculiarities that she was always wanting to
know.
"Well, Polly?"
"Was Lily's mother naughty?"
"O, no, Polly! O, no!"
"What is she shut up in the box for, then?"
"She is gone from us, Polly dear."
"Was _you_ naughty, Lily?" continued the inquisitive little Pollypod;
"and is _that_ the reason why she's gone?"
"No, Polly, dear."
"What is the reason, then, Lily?" inquired the pertinacious little
maid. "I want to know."
"God has taken her, Polly," said Lily, in a tearful voice.
"Where has God taken her to, Lily?"
"There!" pointing upwards.
What did the matter-of-fact little maid do, there and then, but go to
the window, and look into the bright sky for Lily's mother? Mrs.
Podmore kept her there, and whispered to her that poor Lily was not
well and must not be teased. But the child, at intervals, turned her
perplexed eyes to the coffin and then to the beautiful clouds, not at
all satisfied in her mind, and with all her heart "wanting to know."
At length the ride, weary to some and pleasant to some, was over, and
they were in the churchyard and by the grave. There a man, taking old
Wheels aside, spoke a few words to him. An expression of amazement,
almost of horror, came into the old man's face.
"It is impossible!" he exclaimed, in a tone of uncontrollable
agitation. "Here--beneath God's sky!--Surely you are mistaken."
The man replied that there was no mistake.
"Where is the minister?" inquired the old man. "Is that his house? I
will go and see him. Come, children, come with me."
And leaving his friends by the grave, the old man, followed by his
grandchildren, walked swiftly to the house of the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell.
When the relatives of the dead woman entered the gloomy study, Felix,
seeing a tender girl among them, offered Lily a chair. She bowed
without looking into his face, and although she did not sit down, she
rested her hand upon the chair, as if she needed support. If the
thoughts which animated the minds of the five persons in that sombre
study had been laid bare, the strangest of contrasts would have been
seen. There sat the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell; behind him was his
son. They were at variance with one another, and each felt himself so
much in the other's way, that if it had not been for the tie of
kinship that bound them, their opposing natures would have led to the
plain expression of scorn and contempt on the one side, and of harsh
and bitter condemnation on the other.
There stood the delicate girl, whose nerves during the last few days
had been strung to the highest point of which her nature was capable.
A pure and tender lily indeed, as graceful as the flower from which
she derived her name, and whose white bells, as they arch among the
vivid leaves of green, tremble in the lightest breath from zephyr's
mouth. It was so with Lily at this time. A harsh word would have
caused her to quiver with pain. The effect which the suddenness of her
mother's death, and the terrifying dreams that followed, had produced
upon her had not passed away. Like the lily she stood there, dependent
upon surrounding things almost for very life itself; kind looks and
sweet words gladdened her and helped to make her strong, as kind
sunshine and sweet breezes gladden and make strong the flower. And
like the flower, the light in which she stood seemed to come from
inward brightness and purity.
Her brother Alfred stood by her side. What was stirring in his mind?
Well, it was the day on which the Northumberland Plate was run for at
the Newcastle-upon-Tyne races. The race was over by this time. Had
Christopher Sly won? He trembled to think that it might have been
beaten--had come in second, perhaps; had lost "by a head." If it had,
there was woe in store for him. If he were in London, he would know;
this uncertainty was torturing. Now he was in the depth of misery:
Christopher Sly had lost, and he had to pay money, and to make money
good, out of an empty purse. Now he was in the height of gladness: the
horse _could_ not lose--every one of the prophets had said so;
Christopher Sly had won, and everything was right. It was like a
reprieve from death.
Lastly, the grandfather. What his thoughts were will be shown in
words. A strange and unexpected trouble had been added to his grief,
and his handsome thoughtful face showed traces of perplexed anxiety.
When Felix had offered Lily a chair, the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell
had killed the proffered courtesy with an irritable wave of his hand,
which expressed, "You will not presume to sit in my presence." In
everything that Felix did he found cause for anger, and he believed
that his son was animated by a distinct wish to thwart and oppose him;
this very proffered courtesy to one of these persons was another
argument in his mind against Felix. Marble in the hands of a
sympathetic worker was more capable of tenderness and gentleness than
was the face of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell as he sat in his
arm-chair and waited for the intruders to speak.
"My name, sir, is Verity," commenced the old man, in a humble and
respectful voice.
"So I understand," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in a hard and
cold voice.
Lily shivered as the harshly-spoken words fell upon her ears.
"These are my grandchildren," indicating Lily and Alfred.
"A gentleman," thought Felix, as he followed the courteous action of
the old man.
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell received the intimation with a scarcely
perceptible nod, and a colder chill came upon Lily's sensitive spirit
as she raised her eyes to the dark face of the minister.
"They are the children of my dead daughter," continued the old man,
"who before she died expressed a wish to be buried in the place which
had been familiar to her in her younger and happier days."
"These details are scarcely necessary, I should say. What are you here
for?"
The old man's agitation was so great that he was compelled to pause
before he answered; but strength seemed to come to him as he looked at
the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell's stony face.
"The mother of these children is waiting in the churchyard to be
buried."
"You received my message, I have no doubt."
"Some words were spoken to me as coming from you."
"Were not they sufficient?"
"I could not believe, sir, that the words which were delivered to me
came from the lips of a minister of God."
A flash of something very like anger lighted up the small eyes of the
Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"And so you come here to revile His minister?"
"I come here in all humility, sir," replied the old man.
"Do you wish me to repeat the message?"
"I wish to know, sir, that I have been mistaken. I cannot believe that
what I have been told is true."
"It is the evil of the ungodly that they cannot answer straight. Do
you wish me to repeat the message?"
"Yes, sir."
"It is very simple. My intimation was to the effect that I cannot
perform any service over the deceased woman."
"The prayers for the dead----" exclaimed the old man imploringly.
"Are not for her!" said the minister, finishing the sentence sternly.
At these dreadful words Felix started forward to Lily's side; the
young girl was trembling, and he feared she was about to fall. Indeed
she would have fallen, but for his helping hand. Inward fire possessed
the soul of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell at the action of his son
and his wrath was expressed in his face. Felix saw it, but did not
heed it; his lips were firmly set as he yielded Lily to her
grandfather's arms, who, as he bent over her, murmured,
"I would have spared you the pain, my darling! But I thought that your
helplessness and your innocent face would have pleaded for us."
Then he turned to the minister. "Why do you refuse to perform the last
rites over the body of my daughter?"
"I am mistaken if you have not been informed. Her parents were members
of the Wesleyan Methodist body, and the woman was not baptized in the
Church of England. Therefore I cannot say prayers over her."
"Is that God's law?"
"It is mine!" replied the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with
inconsiderate haste. If, when he heard the rejoinder, he could have
caused the old man to fall into dust at his feet, he would have done
so.
"You say truly, sir," said the old man, in a tone of bitter calmness.
"It is not God's law; it is yours."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell shaded his face with his hand; he did
not choose that the feeling there expressed should be seen. He knew,
by his son's sympathetic movement towards Lily, that Felix had gone
over to the enemy, and a consciousness possessed him that Felix was
not displeased at his discomfiture. Still it was his duty to assert
himself, and he did so accordingly in severe measured terms, and in
tones utterly devoid of feeling.
"I have already told you that you came here to revile--to revile God
through His minister. It is such as you who set men's minds afire, and
drive them into the pit."
But the old man interrupted him with,
"Nay, sir, do not let us argue; I at least have no time. A dead woman
is waiting for me. I must go and seek a minister who will say prayers
over the poor clay. Come, my children."
"To seek a minister!" echoed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "What
minister?"
"A Methodist minister, as that is your will."
"Presumptuous!" exclaimed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in wrath so
pious that a colour came to his usually pale face. "No Methodist
minister can be allowed to pray in _my_ churchyard!"--with a
protecting look and motion of his fingers towards the ground where the
dead lay--a look which said, "Fear not! My lips have blessed you; my
prayers have sanctified you. Ye shall not be defiled!"
"How, then, is my daughter to be buried?" asked the old man, with his
hand to his heart.
"The woman must be buried in silence," replied the minister.
As if in sympathy with the words, a dark cloud passed across the face
of the sun, and the sunbeam, with its myriad wonders, vanished on the
instant, while the truant flashes of light that were playing in the
corners of the room darted gladly away to places where light was.
The old man bowed his head, and the words came slowly from his
trembling lips.
"Cruel! Unjust! Wicked!" he said. "Bitterly, bitterly wicked! Do we
not all worship the same God? What has this innocent clay done, that
holy words may not fall upon the earth that covers her? What have we
done, that the last consolation of prayer shall be denied to us?" Then
looking the minister steadily in the face, he said in a firm voice,
"According to your deserts may you be judged! According to your
deserts may you, who set your law above God's, and call yourself His
priest, be dealt with when your time comes!"
Turning, he was about to go, when the voice of the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell stopped him.
"Now that you have done your reviling, attend to me for a few moments.
You lived in this parish once?"
"Twenty years ago," replied the old man. "All my life up to that
time--I and my poor daughter. There will be some here who will
remember me."
"I remember you myself. You had a son?"
"No; I had but one child, she who lies yonder."
"Psha! it is the same--you had a son-in-law----"
The old man looked up with apprehensive eagerness, and Alfred, who had
hitherto been perfectly passive--having indeed for most of the time
been engrossed in torturing himself about Christopher Sly and the
Northumberland Plate--made a sudden movement forward. The old man laid
his hand upon his grandson's arm, cautioning him to silence.
"The father of these young persons," continued the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell. "Where is he?"
"Alfred," exclaimed the old man, "take Lily away. It is too close for
her here. I will join you presently outside."
Indeed, Lily was almost fainting. The long weary ride, the abstention
from food for so many hours, and the sufferings she had experienced
during the dialogue between her grandfather and the minister, had been
too much for her strength. Seeing her weak state, Felix stepped
forward to assist Alfred, and presently they were in the porch.
"Stay one moment, I pray," exclaimed Felix hurriedly; "only a moment."
He darted into the house, and brought out a chair.
"There!" he said. "Let her sit here for a minute or two. It will do
her good. The sun is the other side of us."
It is a fact that Felix, with quick instinct, had selected this place
as being likely to revive the girl. They were out of the glare of the
sun.
"Now, if you will oblige me and not let her move," he said in the same
hurried eager tone, "you will lay me under an obligation that I shall
never be able to pay."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he was upstairs, in
his own room, tearing open his valise; he scattered the things wildly
about, and came flying down again, with a fine white handkerchief and
a bottle of Cologne water in his hand. He poured the liquid upon the
handkerchief, and, with a delicate consideration, handed it to Alfred.
"Bathe her forehead with it; place it on her forehead, so. Now blow
gently--gently. Let me!"
He blew upon the handkerchief, and the deliciously cool breeze revived
the fainting girl. She looked gratefully into his face, which turned
crimson beneath her gaze. But his task was not yet completed, it
seemed. He took from his pocket a flask, which he had also found in
his valise. There was a little silver cup attached to the flask, and
he poured a golden liquid into it.
"Taste this; it will do you good. Nay, put your lips to it; there's no
harm in it. Your brother will drink first to show you how reviving it
is."
His voice was like a fountain; there was something so hearty, and
frank, and good in it, that it refreshed her. Alfred emptied the
silver cup, and her eyes brightened.
"Take a little, Lily," he said; "it _will_ do you good."
She drank a little, and felt stronger at once.
"Where's grandfather?" she asked then.
"He will be with you presently," replied Felix. "I am going into him.
I will tell him to come to you. But before I go," and here his voice
faltered, and became more earnest, "I want you to say that you forgive
me for any pain that you may have felt in--in there," pointing in the
direction of the room they had left.
"Forgive you!" said Lily, in surprise. "Why, you have been kind to us
It was not you who said those dreadful words to grandfather. There is
nothing to forgive in you."
"There is much to forgive," said Felix impetuously; "much, very much,
if it be true that the sins of the father shall be visited on the
children. I am in that state of remorse that I feel as if I had been
the cause of your suffering and your pain."
"Nay, you must not think that," she said, in a very gentle voice; "I
am not well, and we have come a long, long way."
"Well, but humour my whim," he persisted; "it will please me. Say, 'I
forgive you.'"
"I forgive you," she said, with a sad sweet smile.
"Thank you," he said gravely, and touched her hand: and as he walked
into the house again, and into the study where his father and old
Wheels were, Lily's sad smile lingered with him, and made him, it may
be presumed, more unreasonably remorseful.
While this scene was being enacted outside the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell's house, the conversation between the minister and old
Wheels was proceeding. When Lily was out of the room, the old man
said,
"Will you please detain me here as short a time as possible, sir, as
we have much to do and far to go?"
"I will not detain you long," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in
the tone of a man who is about to smite his enemy on the hip;
"possibly you would not have remained, had you not been curious to
know what I have to say respecting your son-in-law."
"Possibly not, sir; you may guess the reason why I wished the tender
girl who was here just now not to be present while you spoke."
"Because I might say something unpleasant. Well, it is not a
creditable story. Searching among the papers of a deceased man, having
warranty to do so, his effects being the property of my son, I came
upon this paper. It recites a singular story of an embezzlement, which
took place--let me see; ah, yes--which took place nearly eighteen
years ago. You know the story, probably?"
"There are so many stories of embezzlement. Is my name mentioned?"
"Otherwise I should not have spoken of the matter to you. After
reciting the manner of the embezzlement and the name of the criminal,
it speaks of intercession by you on his behalf, and how, somewhat out
of compassion and somewhat out of policy, criminal proceedings were
withheld. You undertook to repay the money, and after the payment of
one large sum, dates are set down on which smaller sums were paid on
account from time to time."
"Anything to deny?" asked the minister.
At this point Felix entered the room.
"Nothing to deny. The story is true."
"And you," exclaimed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell loftily, "the
father of a criminal who should be expiating his crime in prison,
presume to lift your voice against me! Truly, I should but be doing my
duty to society if I were to make the matter public."
"Do I understand that the man from whom the money was embezzled is
dead?"
"He is dead."
"There is a balance still due," said old Wheels; "one hundred pounds.
Has he left the claim to any one?"
"My son is heir to the property," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"Your son!" There were traces of disappointment in the old man's voice
as he looked at Felix. "Is this he?"
"This is he."
"You shall be repaid, sir," said the old man humbly to Felix, "to the
last farthing." Felix, who had stood before the old man with head
inclined, turned away abruptly at these words, and looked out of
window. "It is but just," continued the old man in firm and gentle
tones, "that you and he should know, that no one was to blame but the
unfortunate man who committed the crime--for crime it was undoubtedly,
although the law judged it not. The children who were here awhile ago
were babes at the time, and it was to save all of us from shame and
misery that I undertook to repay the money. I have been all my life
paying it, as you may see by the statement in your hand. I did not
know that such a document was in existence. I have a signed quittance
for the money at home, and have had from the time I paid the first
instalment, which, as you see, was large enough to wipe off at once
three-fourths of the debt. But the moral claim remained and remains.
It is my pride to think that some part of my dear granddaughter's
earnings have gone towards the clearing of her father's shame, of
which, up to the present moment, she has never heard. Depend upon it,
sir, the balancer that remains shall be faithfully paid. Have you
anything farther to say to me?"
"Nothing farther. You can go."
The old man lingered as though he were wishful to say a word to Felix;
but that young gentleman, standing with his back to him, gave him no
opportunity, and he left the study in silence. Then the Reverend
Emanuel Creamwell rose and, paced the room, indulging in bitter
meditations. It had been an unfortunate afternoon for him; everything
but this last small triumph had gone wrong with him; he had been
crossed, almost defied, at every turn. First, his son; then, this
presumptuous old man, whose words were still burning in his mind. And
his son's silence now irritated him. Every moment added to his
irritation. Felix, standing with his face to the window, looking out
upon the churchyard, and upon the figures of the old man and his
grandchildren walking towards the grave, showed no disposition to move
or to speak. In the eyes of his father this implied disrespect. He was
not destitute of a certain decision of character, and in harsh tones
he called upon Felix, to speak.
"I have been considering, sir," said Felix. "I ask your pardon for
keeping you waiting."
"Considering what?" demanded the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"The proposition you made to me before these persons intruded upon us.
You offered me a shelter here, until I determined upon a profession.
"On the express understanding that you conform to my rules."
"I do not forget, sir. Those were your very words. Will you permit
me?" He took from the table the document which had been referred to in
the conversation that had lately taken place. "And this old man has
been all his life paying a debt for which he was not liable! There is
hope yet for human nature, sir." A queer smile came upon his lips as
he uttered these words in a half-gentle, half-bantering tone.
"Speak plainly," was the stern rejoinder of the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell.
"I will try to do so. My uncle left a request that all his papers
should be burnt, and I am my uncle's heir. Why was this preserved?"
"You have heard: for your good. It is worth money to you. The man
admits the claim."
"Money!" exclaimed Felix, with a light laugh, in which there was
bitterness: "But the dead must be obeyed."
He went to the fireplace, struck a match, and applied the light to the
paper. The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with face white with anger,
watched the burning of the paper. Felix let the ashes fall into the
fender, and tapped his fingers lightly together, with the air of one
wiping away a soil.
"So!" he said. "I wash my hands of that."
"You know what you have done?" said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell,
placing his hand upon the table to steady himself.
"Yes, sir," answered, Felix gravely; "I shall never trouble you
again."
Then he left the room quietly and sadly.