"But have you considered everything? Think what this may mean, not only to the young lady you are about to marry, but to all your friends."
"I have thought of everything," said Browne.
The lawyer was, however, by no means satisfied. "But, my dear sir," he continued, "is there no way in which you can get out of it?"
"Not one," said Browne. "I have given the matter my earnest attention, and have pledged myself to carry it out. No argument will move me. What I want you to do is to make my will to suit the exigencies of the case."
"Perhaps it would not be troubling you too much to let me know of what they consist," said the lawyer, whose professional ideas were altogether shocked by such unusual—he almost thought insane—behaviour.
"Well, to put it in a few words," said Browne, "I want you to arrange that, in the event of anything happening to me, all of which I am possessed, with the exception of such specific bequests as those of which you are aware, shall pass to the lady whom I would have made my wife had I not died. Do you understand?"
"I understand," said the lawyer; "and if you will furnish me with the particulars I will have a fresh will drawn up. But I confess to you I do not approve of the step you are taking."
"I am sorry for that," Browne replied. "But if you were in my place I fancy you would act as I am doing." Having said this, he gave the lawyer the particulars he required; and, when he left the office a quarter of an hour or so later, he had made Katherine Petrovitch the inheritor of the greater part of his enormous wealth. Whatever should happen to him within the next few months she would at least be provided for. From his lawyer's office he drove to his bank to deposit certain papers; then to his tailor; and finally back to his own house in Park Lane, where he hoped and expected to find the captain of his yacht awaiting him. He was not disappointed. Captain Mason had just arrived, and was in the library at that moment. The latter was not of the usual yachting type. He was short and stout, possessed an unusually red face, which was still further ornamented by a fringe of beard below his chin; he had been at sea, man and boy, all his life, and had no sympathy with his brother-skippers who had picked up their business in the Channel, and whose longest cruise had been to the Mediterranean and back. He had been in old Browne's employ for ten years, and in that of his son after him. What was more, he had earned the trust and esteem of all with whom he was brought in contact; and when Browne opened the door and found that smiling, cheerful face confronting him, he derived a feeling of greater satisfaction than he had done from anything for some considerable time past.