“It will not take me long, Mary, since you say my father kept his papers in such order. Probably I shall have done by the time the Dugdales come. You are quite sure there was a will?”
“Quite sure; you will probably find it in the cabinet. I saw him looking there the very afternoon of the day he died. I was calling him to dinner, but his back was turned, and I could not make him understand—poor father!”
Mary's eyes filled, but the younger brother said a few kind words, and her grief ceased The rest were silent and serious, until Nathanael, going away, addressed Frederick rather formally. All speech between them, though smooth, was invariably formal and rare.
“You are satisfied to leave this duty in my hands?—you do not wish to share it?”
“Oh, no, no!” hurriedly answered the other, walking away in the sunny window-seat, and breathing its freshness eagerly, as if to drive away the bare thought of death and the grave.
Nathanael went out—but ere he had closed the door a little hand touched him.
“What do you want, Agatha?”
“I should like to go with you, if you would allow—that is, if you would not forbid me.”
“Forbid you? Nay! But”—
“I want—not to interrupt you, or share any family secrets—but just to sit near you in the room. This is such a strange, dreary house now!” And she shivered.