It gave Horton much to turn over. "But your conviction has an extraordinary bearing. Do I understand that the thing was handed you by your friend with a knowledge of its contents?"
"Don't, please," Gray said at once, "understand anything either so hideous or so impossible. She but carried out a wish uttered on her father's deathbed, and hasn't so much as suggested that I break the portentous seal. I think in fact," he assured himself, "that she greatly prefers I shouldn't."
"Which fact," Horton observed, "but adds of course to your curiosity."
Gray's look at him betrayed on this a still finer interest in his interest. "You see the limits in me of that passion."
"Well, my dear chap, I've seen greater limits to many things than your having your little secret tucked away under your thumb. Do you mind my asking," Horton risked, "whether what deters you from action—and by action I mean opening your letter—is just a real apprehension of the effect designed by the good gentleman? Do you feel yourself exposed, by the nature of your mind or any presumption on Gaw's behalf, to give credit, vulgarly speaking, to whatever charge or charges he may bring?"
Gray weighed the question, his wide dark eyes would have told us, in, his choicest silver scales. "Neither the nature of my mind, bless it, nor the utmost force of any presumption to the contrary, prevents my having found my uncle, in his wonderful latest development, the very most charming person that I've ever seen in my life. Why he impressed me as a model of every virtue."
"I confess I don't see," said Horton, "how a relative so behaving could have failed to endear himself. With such convictions why don't you risk looking?"
Gray was but for a moment at a loss—he quite undertook to know. "Because the whole thing would be so horrible. I mean the question itself is—and even our here and at such a time discussing it."
"Nothing is horrible—to the point of making one quake," Horton opined, "that falls to the ground with a smash from the moment one drops it. The sense of your document is exactly what's to be appreciated. It would have no sense at all if you didn't believe."
Gray considered, but still differed. "Yes, to find it merely vindictive and base, and thereby to have to take it for false, that would still be an odious experience."