The lamp was shaded, and cast a light full down upon the paper; and as the doctor stooped to write, he suddenly started as if he had been stung, and then stood trembling and wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
“Humbug, Tom! humbug!” snarled his brother; “that’s your baggage of a girl’s name; but it don’t upset you like that? What did you act like a brute for, and drive her away, eh? You did, Tom; you did!”
“But I cannot sign the paper without knowing its contents,” stammered the doctor.
“Bah, fool! tom-cat! humbug!” snarled the old man, snatching up the paper, and trying with trembling hands to force it back into the envelope. “It’s my will, I tell you. There, be off!” and he began to shuffle back again to his chair.
“I’ll sign,” said the doctor reluctantly.
Octavius took not the slightest notice, only reseated himself.
“I’ll sign the paper, Octy,” said the doctor, in a tone of voice that seemed to prove his brother’s words—that he could not afford to offend him.
“You can do as you like,” croaked Octavius, shuffling the envelope into the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown, where it stuck out tantalisingly before the doctor, who would have given a week’s income to have known its contents. “You can do as you like, Tom—as you like.”
“I know that,” growled the doctor, in an undertone; but the old man heard him.
“There, go!” he shouted, in a harsh, cracked voice.