"In all things else!" exclaimed the youth, bitterly. "Why, this is everything."
"Certainly, certainly," answered the lawyer, "you see now the great self-sacrifice made by this inestimable lady, when she destroyed the will, leaving you encumbered only with a moral obligation"
"Which she knew to be fifty times as binding," said Farnham, glancing sternly at his mother.
"Yes, yes; I knew that your sense of honor would be stronger than fifty legal documents like that; I depended on your generosity, Frederick; I drew a medium between the legal tyrant that your papa made me, and the powerless mother. Fred is noble, I argued; he loved his father; he will not bow to the law, but will fling all this fortune back into my lap. I will burn the will and trust to his sense of duty. There was a medium, sir, you comprehend all its delicate outlines, I trust."
This was said blandly to the lawyer, who bowed with a look of profound appreciation.
Farnham stood up firmly. "Mother, in this thing there is no medium between right and wrong. If my father left his property to me, his only child, on these conditions they must be enforced." He hesitated an instant, the crimson mounted to his temples, and he added in a clear, low voice, "madam, will you say upon your solemn word of honor, that this was the purport of the will you have burned?"
Mrs. Farnham turned white, her eyes fell, she trembled beneath the searching glance of her son.
"I—I cannot remember word for word, but as surely as I stand here, the property would have never been yours by the will, without—without"—
"Enough," said the young man, "enough that you have said it once, I submit to the will of my father."
"And you give up this girl. Dear, dear, Frederick!"