The sick man was obviously ill-pleased and not a little scornful. “You will understand why I don’t want to be overheard when I tell you—” Again he sent the searching glance into that square of the world the driftwood lintel framed, and his voice was half a whisper. “You’ll understand when I tell you I have a legacy to leave.” He waited.
“Yes,” said Hildegarde.
“How did you know!” he demanded, and the eyes were less friendly.
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“You suspected—”
“Well, most people, however poor, have something to leave, however little.”
He lifted his hand to silence the platitude, and his whisper reached her clear and sharp: “I am leaving more than ever a man left before.”
It was true then about the Mother Lode. She waited, hardly breathing. He had said she could help him. He wanted a letter written or witness to a will, but he had fallen back upon that strained listening. “You have children?” Hildegarde asked.
He made a barely perceptible motion, no.