“He said he had made his life and you yours, and that he knew you didn’t want to be disturbed any more than he did.”
“He was right,” said I.
The forgery has long ceased to be important. James and his wife, with their wholly different ideas and methods, could not possibly be remoulded now to my purposes. I have educated Walter and Natalie to the headship of the family; I’ve neither time nor inclination to take up a couple of strangers and make an arduous and extremely dubious experiment.
“So,” my wife went on, “I ask you to send for James. I wish to see him restored to what is rightfully his before I die.”
“I’ll send for him,” said I. “It may take a little time, as he is out of town. But be patient, and I’ll send for him.”
I learned that I had spoken more truthfully than I knew. He was camping with his wife in the depths of the Adirondacks, several days away from the mails. The next day I told Cress to write him a letter saying I’d interpose no objection if he should try to see his mother, who was ill. I ordered Cress to hold the letter until the following day. But that night she died. She was not fully conscious again after her exhausting talk with me.
The evening of the day of the funeral I took Walter into my sitting-room and repeated to him what his mother had told me. “But,” said I, “because I promised her, I forgive you. It would have been more manly had you confessed to me, but I’ve learned not to expect the impossible.”
“All I ask, sir,” said he, “is that you never let Natalie know. She’d despise me—she’d leave me.”
I could not restrain a smile at this absurd exaggeration—at this delusion of vanity that he was the important factor with Natalie, and not I and my property.
“You can say,” he went on, “that you have changed your mind, and you needn’t give a reason. And James can take my place, and, believe me, she’ll not be at all surprised.”