“I don’t care!” exclaimed John, suddenly. “I can’t believe it all ends here. I can’t, and I won’t. There’s something—somewhere, I daresay I shall never get it, but there’s something. I know it, because I feel there is. It’s in me, and you, and everybody.”
Mrs. Ralston smiled sadly. She had heard her husband triumphantly refute the ontological argument many a time.
“I wish I felt it in me, then,” she answered, sincerely. “Jack—isn’t there something strange about this will, though? An unknown lawyer, servants for witnesses—all that, as though it had been done in a hurry. It seems odd to me.”
“Yes. Bright and I were talking about it.”
He went on to tell her what Bright thought.
“He says he knows the lawyer, though,” he concluded, “and that he’s a straight man, so it must be all right.”
“Mr. Allen said he’d only heard his name mentioned once or twice lately,” said Mrs. Ralston. “It was a long, long will. Then every servant was mentioned by name. I had no idea there could be so many in the house.”
“Who are the witnesses?” asked John.
“One was the secretary—you know? That nice young fellow who used to be about. I don’t know who the others were—I’ve forgotten their names. Mr. Allen didn’t seem to think there’d be any difficulty about finding them. He thought the property was all in this State—most of it’s in the city, so that the will could be proved immediately.”
“Well—I hope so. But I believe there’ll be some trouble. Alexander only comes in for a small share. He’ll do his best to break the will, so as to get the money divided between his father and you. The Brights would get nothing, in that case. We should get a lot more, of course—but then—I can’t realize what twenty millions mean, can you? What difference will it make in our lives, whether we have twenty or forty? Those sums are mythological, anyhow. The more a man has, above ten millions, the more care and bother and worry, and enemies he’s got for the rest of his life.”