'I tell you I must have it done, and done at once. I'm deadly tired, and I want it over.'
Mr Gates shrugged his shoulders, got out the will, and settled himself at the round table, on whose crimson velvet-pile cloth stood a papier-maché inkstand, a recent purchase of Miss Letitia's.
He sat there biting his pen, and making aimless little scribbles on a sheet of blank paper. After some minutes he leaned forward, and for a little time no sound was heard but the squeak of his pen. At last he flung down the quill and rose.
'It is the only way it can be done, sir,' he said, and read it out.
It carried out Ferrier's plans, but placed the personal property in the hands of trustees, who were to pay to Roland and Richard the interest thereof so long as they worked the mill together. If at the end of twenty-one years there had been no dissolution between them, the money was to pass unconditionally to them, in equal shares, or to the survivor of them, or to their heirs if they were both dead. If they quarrelled, the interest was to be allowed to accumulate for ten years, and then, if the brothers were still not on friendly terms, it should go, with the capital, to the Infirmary.
'That's right,' said old Richard, in a voice so changed as to convince the solicitor that he was right in saying he had not much more time to spend.
The codicil was signed, duly attested, and attached to the will, and Ferrier lay back exhausted, but with a light of new contentment in his eyes.
'I'm right down tired out,' he said; 'I shall sleep now.'
And sleep he did till the cold hour of the dawn, when there came a brief waking interval, before the longest, soundest sleep of all.
He opened his eyes then.