"He is dying," cried Dorinda, running to the bedside. "Call the nurse."
Rupert opened the door, but Mallien looking like a fiend rushed to the dying man and shook him roughly. "You are a liar! you are a liar!" he screamed, white with thwarted ambition. "This will is not forged; this will is----"
Hendle, furious with the man's inhumanity, caught him by the shoulders and thrust him out of the room. The nurse hurried in and along with Dorinda tried to revive the fainting vicar, but in vain. Dr. Tollart was immediately sent for and came at once to pronounce that there was no hope. Leigh lingered for twenty-four hours and then passed away quietly without ever regaining consciousness. This time, as Tollart took care to prove, the vicar was really dead, and within a week his body was again placed in the family vault. To be certain about the catalepsy, the corpse was kept above ground for the seven days until there was no doubt that the man actually was dead. In vain Titus Ark, overcome with grief, repeated his parrot cry that his friend "worn't dead." Leigh was on this occasion a truly dead man. The blow on the head, the shock to his nervous system caused by being buried alive, and perhaps the shame of having to confess his forgery of the will, had all combined to kill him. He died and Barship knew him no more.
And Mallien? He was almost crazy with rage at his loss. Again and again he tried to prove that the forged will was a genuine document, and saw many lawyers and experts. But the confession of Leigh, signed by himself and witnessed by Titus Ark and his grandson, held good, as it gave all details of how the false testament had been prepared. Leigh confessed therein that he had copied the signature of John Hendle from the letters which first gave him an idea of committing the forgery. So in the end Mallien had to accept the fact that Rupert was the true Squire of Barship, and that there was not the slightest chance of his getting a single penny of the four thousand a year he so greedily coveted.
While Mallien, frenzied with baffled avarice, was moving heaven and earth to prove that he was the rightful heir, the other people who had been connected with the strange affair of the will were settling themselves in life. Mrs. Beatson obtained a situation as housekeeper to an invalid gentleman in Derbyshire, much to the relief of Kit and Miss Tollart. Hendle was so pleased with the way in which these two had assisted him at an awkward moment, that he gave Kit a handsome sum of money; and, along with Dorinda, was present at his marriage to the doctor's daughter. Tollart himself found that, in spite of all efforts, he could not quite do away with the prejudice against him, although more or less he managed, as has been said, to reëstablish his position. But perhaps conscience had something to do with his determination to go to Australia with the young couple, for he felt very uncomfortable among his patients. Sophy, who was unwilling to part from her father since he might take to drink again, suggested that he should emigrate. The doctor did so and shortly departed with Mr. and Mrs. Beatson for Melbourne, where he hoped to redeem himself entirely. And, thanks to Rupert's generosity, a start at the Antipodes was made easy both for him and for the young people.
As to Hendle and Dorinda, they took advantage of Mallien's preoccupation with regard to the will to get married quietly in London. Dorinda was of age and did not require her father's consent. Moreover, after his shabby behavior, she felt that even though he was her father, she could never live with him again. So she became Mrs. Hendle shortly after Leigh was buried for the second time, and, after a short honeymoon, returned to be welcomed by one and all as the mistress of The Big House. Everyone was delighted that Rupert still kept his position, and everyone knew that the will, which had caused so much trouble, had been forged. Hendle would have preferred to keep Leigh's confession to himself out of regard to the unfortunate vicar's memory, but Mallien's action left him no option but to make it public. The amazing story added yet another chapter to the romance of the whole queer business, and the story got into the newspapers. Mr. and Mrs. Hendle were not a little troubled by reporters and interviewers and snap-shot people, but in the end curiosity died away and they were left to live their own simple life, doing good and making everyone around them happy.
In the end, Mallien found that his efforts to prove the will to be genuine were futile, so one day presented himself at The Big House in a very dismal frame of mind. Not being able to get the property, he was secretly pleased that his daughter should have become Mrs. Hendle, even without his consent, as he hoped to use her for his own ends. With the greatest impudence he suggested that his son-in-law should fulfill his old promise and allow him five hundred a year.
"Oh, no," said Rupert, calmly, when Mallien came for a last interview. "I don't think it is good for you to be treated with such leniency."
"Nor do I," chimed in Dorinda, who found it difficult to behave amiably to her father, seeing how badly he had behaved.
"What do you mean?" demanded Mallien, taken aback, for he had quite expected to get his own way. "What do you both mean?"