“Well, thank God you are safe and sound, at any rate,” answered Eustace; and then, with a sudden burst of anxiety, “you are not going back to New Zealand just yet, are you?”
“I don’t know. I am rather sick of the sea just now.”
“No, indeed, she is not,” said Lady Holmhurst; “she is going to stop with me and Dick. Miss Smithers saved Dick’s life, you know, when the nurse, poor thing, had run away. And now, dear, you had better tell Mr. Meeson about the will.”
“The will. What will?” asked Eustace.
“Listen, and you will hear.”
And Eustace did listen with open eyes and ears while Augusta, getting over her shyness as best she might, told the whole story of his uncle’s death, and of the way in which he had communicated his testamentary wishes.
“And do you mean to tell me,” said Eustace, astounded, “that you allowed him to have his confounded will tattooed upon your neck?”
“Yes,” answered Augusta, “I did; and what is more, Mr. Meeson, I think that you ought to be very much obliged to me; for I daresay that I shall often be sorry for it.”
“I am very much obliged,” answered Eustace; “I had no right to expect such a thing, and, in short, I do not know what to say. I should never have thought that any woman was capable of such a sacrifice for—for a comparative stranger.”
Then came another awkward pause.