"Why, Loo, I sent off the message to your mama. They know it by now."
"Charley—Charley—"
"Why, honey, you're full of nerves! You mustn't go to pieces like this.
Your sister's all right. I sent them a—"
"You—you don't know, Charley. My sister—I swore her an oath on my mother's prayer-book. I wouldn't tell, but, now that he's dead, that—lets me out. The will—Charley, he made it yesterday, like he always swore he would the next time you got your name on the front page."
"Made what, honey? Who?"
"Charley, can't you understand? My sister Ida Bell and Brookes—your father's lawyer. She's his private stenographer—Brookes's, honey. You know that. But she told me last night, honey, when I went home. You're cut off, Charley! Your old man sent for Brookes yesterday at noon. I swear to God, Charley! My sister Ida Bell she broke her confidence to tell me. He's give a million alone to the new college hospital. Half a million apiece to four or five old people's homes. He's give his house to the city with the art-gallery. He's even looked up relations to give to. He kept his word, honey, that all those years he kept threatening. He—he kept it the day before he died. He must have had a hunch—your poor old man. Charley darling, don't look like that! If your wife ain't the one to break it to you you're broke, who is? You're not 'Million Dollar Charley' no more, honey. You're just my own Charley, with his chance come to him—you hear, my Charley, with the best thing that ever happened to him in his life happening right now."
He regarded her as if trying to peer through something opaque, his hands spread rather stupidly on his wide knees.
"Huh?"
"Charley, Charley, can't you understand? A dollar, that puts him within the law, is all he left you."
"He never did. He never did. He wouldn't. He couldn't. He never did. I saw—his will. I'm the only survivor. I saw his will."