One speculation will serve as an instance; he had purchased, some fifteen years before his death, the freehold of an estate bordering upon London; and in a locality which was then regarded as hopelessly unfashionable. A great capitalist had ruined himself by building large houses on the property, foreseeing that at some time or other the tide of the great city would reach this hitherto high and dry spot. But he had made a miscalculation, and he died before the tide which was to bring him wealth reached his property; old Ralph had then stepped in and bought it—houses, land, everything. In ten years’ time the tide of fashion rolled that way, and now what had once been a neglected and forgotten quarter was the center of fashionable London.
It reads like a romance, but like many other romances, it was true.
Old Ralph himself had no idea of his own wealth, and that when he died he should leave behind him one of the most colossal fortunes in England.
Almost stunned by the immense total—so far as it had been arrived at—Stephen went about the place silent and overwhelmed.
But one thought was always ringing like a bell in his brain—“And I had nearly lost all this!”
Sometimes, in the quiet of the library, where he sat surrounded by books and papers, by accountants’ statements and estimates, he would grow pale and tremble as he reflected by what a narrow chance he had secured this Midas-like wealth.
But had he secured it? and when the question presented itself, as it did a hundred, aye, a thousand times a day, he would turn ashy pale, and clutch the edge of the table to keep himself from reeling.
Where was that will—the real, true, valid will—which left everything away from him to Una?
Day by day, while going over the accounts, he found himself waiting, watching, expecting someone—whom he could not imagine—coming in and saying: “This is not yours; here is the will. I found it so and so, at such and such a time!” and he felt that if such a moment occurred it would kill him.
But as the days passed and no one came to contest his claim to the property, he grew more confident and assured, and at last he nearly succeeded in convincing himself that he really had burned the will.