The thing was so strange that Bayre could not trust himself to consider it thoroughly at that time. Hastily gathering up all the rest of the papers which he could find, he decided, after a moment’s hesitation, not to take them back to the château, but to carry them with him to London, and to communicate with Olwen from there, telling her of his find, and asking her advice as to whether he should send them to her or to his uncle’s solicitors.
They would, he thought, be better judges of his uncle’s real state of mind than he could be; and in any case the will could not be of much value, as his uncle had undoubtedly altered his dispositions long since.
So utterly absorbed was he in the strange events which had happened, and in this last, perhaps the strangest discovery of all, that the journey to London seemed only half the length of the journey away from it.
He had sent no word as to the day he was returning, so that when he entered the sitting-room at the Diggings at ten o’clock at night he found Southerley and Repton smoking together by the fire, in a state of gloom and abstraction, and with the supper-table laid for only two.
“Hallo!” said Repton, sulkily. “You, is it?”
But Southerley only scowled and said nothing.
“Yes, it’s me,” replied Bayre, with ungrammatical cheeriness. “How are you, eh? Have you got any bottled stout? And how’s the—”
But Repton sprang up with a yell and a tragic uplifting of the arm.
“Don’t dare to pronounce that evil brat’s name here,” cried he, sepulchrally. “Unless you want to be chucked out of window.”
“But why not?” persisted Bayre, who felt a redoubled interest in the child whose guardian it had certainly once been his uncle’s intention that he should be.