“I have honor, mother,” Stuart interrupted, his brow clouded, his face stern. “You wrong me and insult me. The past is gone. Why bring it back? I shall do my duty for Douglas Gerant’s sake, for honor, justice, right and truth’s sake, and for nothing else. I shall seek out Margery Daw; I have pledged myself to the dead, and shall keep my word.”
“And what will Vane say to this quixotic course?”
“Vane is a true-hearted woman; she will say I am right. But, should she not, then I cannot help it—I am resolved.”
Stuart turned to the fire as he spoke, and looked into the blaze with a pained, weary expression on his face.
“The world will call you mad,” observed Mrs. Crosbie, crossing to the window and sinking into a chair, “and Vane will be greatly displeased.”
“Vane loves me—so you say,” replied Stuart, quietly; then he turned to the table, and began to write rapidly.
On the night after Sir Douglas Gerant’s death, in the seclusion of his room, Stuart had broken the covering of the packet intrusted to his care, and read the contents. The funeral was over now, and the will read. Beecham Park was left to Stuart, with the proviso that he fulfilled certain conditions contained in a letter already placed in his hands.
The writing was close and crabbed, but it was distinct, and Stuart read it easily.
“When I first decided upon making you my heir, Stuart, I determined to couple that decision with another that would perhaps prove as irksome to you as it has been sorrowful and disappointing to me. But a new influence has since come into my life—hope, sweet, bright, glorious hope, with peace and gladness behind it. Let me tell you my story.
“You will have heard of your cousin, Douglas Gerant, as a scamp, a profligate, a disgrace. I was wild, perhaps foolish and hot-headed; but, Stuart, I never dishonored my name or my father’s memory. My brother Eustace and I were never on good terms. He hated me for my wild spirits, my good looks, and my success with women, and I, on my side, had little sympathy with his narrow, cramped life and niggardly ways; so one day we agreed to part and never meet except when absolutely necessary. I left him in his dull home at Beecham Park, where his one idea of enjoyment was to scan rigidly the accounts of the estate and curtail the expenses, and went to London.