"He was rather a nice chap. Oh, well, she won't miss you, if he is with her. Sit down. I want to tell you something."
Sidney quietly obeyed him. Her own news could keep. She saw that her uncle was full of his own affairs.
Major Urquhart leant back in his chair. Looking at him Sidney saw that his hair was rapidly getting white; he had become a careworn old man, and her heart ached for him, for she knew that the atmosphere of love was wanting in his home, and there was but little comfort for him.
"I've been making my will," her uncle said solemnly; "one can't tell at my time of life how soon it might be wanted. I've had it drawn up and legally witnessed, and it is here."
He patted a businesslike envelope on his table. "I've been writing a letter to my wife explaining the contents of it. The letter I am going to lock up in dear Vernon's writing bureau. She'll soon find that after—after I'm taken. But I want you to know, and only you, where I am going to put my will. I'm not going to have any risk of it being lost; and she's rather thick with that lawyer chap. Upon my word, I'm beginning to suspect everybody nowadays. Look here!"
He went up to the fireplace, and, stooping down, took up a bit of the flooring in a recess by the side of it. Sidney followed him, and saw a tin box reposing underneath.
"That's where my will is going to be!" he said impressively.
"All right, uncle. May it remain there for many a long year."
He shook his head.
"We are not a long-lived family. Look at poor Vernon! Well, I've relieved my mind. And you'll be able to have it produced when necessary. You see, the best of women are curious, and I shouldn't like her to get an inkling of its contents, so I have put it where she will never be able to find it. And I would like you to know, Sid, that the old house and its contents will just come back to you. She would never live here. She has no love for the place. I couldn't rest in my grave, unless I felt that I had made my wrongdoing right as far as possible. I shall like to feel that in days to come you, and perhaps children who may come after you, will still be here."