“I met the telegraph-boy on the bridge. I shouldn’t have thought it of myself. I believe some fiend lay in wait to tempt me.”
“Very likely he did! Well, I’ve never had any thought of Miss Vyner. Of course, I have always known that you were gone on her—you wasted your trouble.”
Even at that moment, Godfrey felt a sense of relief at the convincing dryness of Guy’s tone. But it stung him.
“I was mad,” he said; “but don’t imagine I shall profit by the consequences. I shall treat the will as so much waste paper. As if it had been burnt, as it ought to have been.”
“There are two words to that,” said Guy.
“I’ve spoken mine,” said Godfrey, standing up and speaking hotly. “I swore before—by her side, as solemnly as I knew how, that I wouldn’t inherit under that will, and I will not.”
“What did you do?”
Then Godfrey told him what he had done, ending passionately, with—
“I could never have faced you otherwise.”
“You have only got yourself and everybody into a hopeless hole. Making vows like a romantic girl, which depend on your own state of mind for their meaning,” said Guy, angrily. “The fiend was handy then, I should say;” and he laughed in an odd, fierce fashion.