The President: Have you any affidavit from anybody who saw Mr. Meeson in the water?
No, my Lord; I have an affidavit from a sailor named Okers, the only man who was picked up in the water after the Kangaroo foundered, which states that he believes that he saw Mr. Meeson spring from the ship into the water, but the affidavit does not carry the matter further. He cannot swear that it was Mr. Meeson.
The President: Well, I think that that will do. The Court is necessarily adverse to allowing the presumption of death, except on evidence of the most satisfactory nature. Still, considering that nearly four months have now passed since the foundering of the Kangaroo under circumstances which make it exceedingly improbable that there were any other survivors, I think that it may fairly presume that Mr. Meeson shared the fate of the other passengers.
Mr. Fiddlestick: The death to be presumed from the 18th of December.
The President: Yes, from the eighteenth.
Mr. Fiddlestick: If your Lordship pleases.
Augusta put down the paper with a gasp. There was she, safe and sound, with the true last will of Mr. Meeson tattooed upon her; and “probate had issued”—whatever that mysterious formula might mean—to another will, not the real last will. It meant (as she in her ignorance supposed) that her will was no good, that she had endured that abominable tattooing to no purpose, and was, to no purpose, scarred for life.
It was too much; and, in a fit of vexation, she flung the Times out of the window, and cast herself back on the cushion, feeling very much inclined to cry.