“Not well, young man?” Craik asked, looking up at him with a bitter laugh. “I am as well as you. Here is my will. There is the cabinet. And there is Charlotte Sherrington Trimm. Send for her husband. Ask him if it is not a good case for a jury. You may be in love with the girl, and she may be in love with you, for all I know. But you have been made to fall in love with each other by that scheming old woman, there. The only way she could get the money into the family was through you. She is lawyer enough to know that there may be a duplicate somewhere, and that I should make one fast enough if there were not. Besides, to burn a will means the State’s Prison, and she wants to avoid that place, if she can.”
The possibility and the probability that the whole story might be true, flashed suddenly upon George’s mind, and he turned very pale. The recollection of Totty’s amazing desire to please him was still fresh in his mind, and he remembered how very unexpected it had all seemed, the standing invitation to the house, the extreme anxiety to draw him to the country, the reckless way in which Totty had left him alone with her daughter, Totty’s manner on that night when she had persuaded him to offer himself to Mamie—the result, and the cable message she had shown him, ready prepared, and taking for granted her husband’s consent. By this time Totty had sunk into a chair and was sobbing helplessly, covering her face with her hands and handkerchief. George walked up to her, while old Tom Craik kept at his elbow, as though fearing that he might prove too easily forgiving.
“How long have you known the contents of that will?” George asked steadily, and still trying to speak kindly.
“Since—the end—of April,” Totty sobbed. She felt it impossible to lie, for her brother’s eyes were fixed on her face and she was frightened.
“You did, did you? Well, well, that ought to settle it,” said Craik, breaking into a savage laugh. “I fancy it must have been about that time that she began to like you so much,” he added looking at George.
“About the first of May,” George answered coldly. “I remember that on that day I met you in the street and you begged me to go and see Mamie, who was alone.”
“I like men who remember dates,” chuckled the old man at his elbow.
“I have been very much deceived,” said George. “I believed it was for myself. It was for money. I have nothing more to say.”
“You have not asked me whether I knew anything,” said Mamie, coming before him. Her alabaster skin was deadly white and her grey eyes were on fire.
“Your mother knows you too well to have told you,” George answered very kindly. “I have promised to marry you. I do not suspect you, but I would not break my word to you, even if I thought that you had known.”