Gwen was silent. She could not talk freely about her feelings to any one, but she had, as she expressed it to Deb, 'learnt her lesson.' Her self-confidence had been shaken to the roots, and she was no longer desirous of following her own plans to the exclusion of all advice from others. Having discovered that she could make mistakes, she began to wonder whether her life had not been full of them; and the gradual conviction of this drove her to her knees, and led her to the feet of the great Teacher as a little child.
One evening, soon after poor Deb's death, Agatha and Gwen were sitting down to a cosy evening together, when they were surprised by the sudden entrance of Alick Lester. He seemed strangely perturbed, and very anxious to pour out his trouble into Agatha's ears. When Gwen made a movement to go, he begged her to remain.
'You will all know it soon. It will be no secret, but I'd give a good deal to have prevented it coming out now. May I begin from the beginning?'
Then, taking a seat, he plunged into it at once.
'You know I found some papers in my father's cupboard. He knew of them, but had never given me a hint of it, except that he had made me promise to be home if possible last autumn. It appears that my grandfather before he died made a codicil to his will, and handed it over to the keeping of my father, forbidding him to ever show it to any one, until the right time came to act upon it. I suppose the poor old man may have wished to right matters a little, and had got over his bitterness about my father's marriage. I know he took a good deal of notice of me as a small boy, but I never dreamt he had any special reason for it. The codicil simply transferred the whole of his property from the hands of my uncle to myself when I should reach my twenty-sixth year. This I did last September, and this accounts for my father's anxiety to have me back at that time. It appears now that my uncle's valet got wind of this—how, and where, I can't imagine—but he told my uncle he knew my father held some important papers in his hands that concerned him. And after my father's death, as you know, Miss Dane, my uncle came down here to try and get hold of them. Well, after our return, I suppose the delight of having Roger back again put the whole affair out of my uncle's head, but lately he hasn't been very well—at least that is the most charitable way to look at it—and he has been perpetually nagging at me about the contents of the cupboard, and asking to see them.'
'I cannot think why you did not show them at once to him,' interrupted Agatha.
The young fellow looked a little confused.
'I daresay you may think me an ass, but I could not for the life of me bear the thought of turning the old man out after all these years. He hasn't got many more years to live, and has seemed so perfectly secure in his possession that I hadn't the heart to show the codicil to him. Of course, I know most people would call me a fool—our old lawyer practically did so—but I put off doing anything about it, as much for the sake of Roger, perhaps, as his father.
'Well, last night I lost my temper, and when my uncle began to attack my father's good name, and hint that he had dishonourably kept family papers from the head of the family, I whipped out the codicil in his face, and asked him to read it through. Of course there was an awful row. At first he thought I had forged it, and he telegraphed to his lawyer, who came down the first thing this morning, and we had a great consultation in the library. Then my uncle shut himself up in his room, and has refused to see me since. I don't know how it will all end. I have begged and implored Roger to persuade him to stay on, and let things be as they were; but he won't hear of it, and meditates leaving at once. I feel awfully low about it, but what can I do?'
'You are a very quixotic young man,' said Gwen, unable to keep from smiling at the woe-begone face in front of her. 'You should be thankful it's all out, and your uncle knows the truth.'