“Why do you say ‘Poor Jack?’” said Una, with a hollow look in her beautiful eyes.
“Because—because he is a wicked young man, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant. “Poor Jack!”
CHAPTER XV.
Amidst a profound silence Jack walked slowly and quietly out of the house. There was no anger in his heart against the old man whose favorite he had once been—for the moment there was scarcely any anger against Stephen; surprise and bewilderment overwhelmed every other feeling.
He had not expected a large sum of money—had certainly not expected the Hurst; and but for the words spoken by the dying man, he would not have expected anything at all, after having offended him in the matter of the money-lenders and the post-obit. But most assuredly the squire had intimated that there would be something—something, however small.
And now he was told that there was nothing, that his name was not even mentioned.
Apart from any mercenary consideration, Jack was cut up and disappointed; if there had been a simple mourning ring, a few of the old guns out of the armory—anything as a token of the old man’s forgiveness, he would have been satisfied; but nothing, not one word.
Then, again, he could not understand it, near his end as he was when he spoke to him. The squire was as sane and clear-headed as he had been at any time of his life, or at least so it seemed to Jack; and he certainly had given him to understand that he had left him some portion of his immense wealth.
It was another link in the chain of mysteries which had seemed to coil around Jack since he started from London.