“No,” answered Alexander, meditatively. “No—I think not. My child,” he continued, in a tone unusually gentle for him, “do you think that without feeling that you are betraying my poor uncle Robert’s confidence, you could tell me what that will contains?”
She fancied from the way in which he spoke that he had framed the question at his leisure before she had come home, so as neither to offend her nor to refer to his previous attempts to gain her confidence. She hesitated a moment before answering him, but he did not appear to be impatient. In her quick weighing of the case, she could see little or no reason for not satisfying his curiosity.
“Recollect, my dear, that I only wish you to speak about it, if you feel that you can do so with a perfectly clear conscience,” he said.
“Oh, yes; of course!” she answered, repressing a smile. “But I don’t really see why you shouldn’t know. I think, while he was alive—well, that was different. But now—I think it’s quite fair. Of course, I don’t know what will this is. He may have made several, for all we know. But the one he told me about was like this. His idea was to make three trusts, all equal. Oh!—in the first place there was to be one million for the Brights, amongst the three, aunt Maggie, Hamilton, and Hester. Then the three equal shares of the rest were to go in trust to Charlotte and Jack Ralston and me—what did you say, papa?”
Alexander Junior had uttered an indistinct exclamation.
“Nothing,” he said. “Go on.”
“Each of us three was to pay half the income of a share to one of you three, you and mother, and Mrs. Ralston. But before that—I forgot to say it—each of us was to contribute something to make up an income for grandpapa—about fifty thousand dollars altogether, I think. Then the fortune was all to be in trust for our possible children. That was all. I don’t think there was anything else.”
“Do you mean to say that there was nothing left outright to any of us older ones?” asked Alexander, in a tone of stupefaction.
“Well—you three had half the income amongst you,” answered Katharine.
“What an absurd will!” exclaimed her father.