He broke off, feeling, as he always did, that he could say none of the things that he really meant to say, and being angry with himself for his own stupidity.
"I'm very glad," Duncombe said, "if I've done that. I think you have a fine future before you if you do the things you're really suited for—which you will do, of course. But I'm going to trust you still further. I know I can depend on your discretion——"
"If there's anything in the world——" Henry began eagerly.
"It's nothing very difficult," Duncombe said, still smiling; "I am in all probability going to have a serious operation. It's not quite settled—I shall know after a further examination. But it is almost certain. . . .
"There are definite chances that I shall not live through it—the chances of my surviving or not are about equal, I believe. I'll tell you frankly that if I were to think only of myself, death is infinitely preferable to the pain that I have suffered during the last six months. It was when the pain became serious that I determined to hurry up those family papers that you are now working on. I had an idea that I might not have much time left and I wanted to find somebody who could carry them on. . . . Well, I have found somebody," he said, turning towards Henry and smiling his slightly cynical smile. "In my Will I have left you a certain sum that will support you at any rate for the next three years, and directions that the book is to be left entirely in your hands. . . . I know that you will do your best for it."
Henry's words choked in his throat. He saw the bright grass and the red dazzled house through a mist of tears. He wanted, at that moment above all, to be practical, a hard, common-sense man of the world—but of course as usual he had no power to be what he wanted.
"Yes . . . my best . . ." he stammered.
"Then, what I mean is this," Duncombe continued. "If you do that you will still have some relations with my family, with my brother and sister, I mean." He paused, then continued looking in front of him as though for the moment he had forgotten Henry. "When I first knew that my illness was serious I felt that I could not leave all this. I had no other feeling for the time but that, that I must stay here and see this place safely through these difficult days . . ." He paused again, then looked straight across to Henry.
"I have not forgotten what happened in London in the library the other day. You will probably imagine from that that my brother is a very evil person. He is not, only impulsive, short-sighted and not very clever at controlling his feelings. He has an affection for me but none at all for this place, and as soon as he inherits it he will sell it.
"It is that knowledge that is hardest now for me to bear. Tom is reckless with money, reckless with his affections, reckless with everything, but he is not a mean man. He came into the library that day to get some papers that he knew he should not have rather as a schoolboy might go to the cupboard and try to steal jam, but you will find when you meet him again that he bears no sort of malice and will indeed have forgotten the whole thing. My sister too—of course she is rather foolish and can't adapt herself to the new times, but she is a very good woman, utterly unselfish, and would die for Tom and myself without a moment's hesitation. If I go, be a help to her, Henry. She doesn't know you now at all, but she will later on, and you can show her that things are not so bad—that life doesn't change, that people are as they always were—certainly no worse, a little better perhaps. To her, the world seems to be suddenly filled with ravening wolves—— Poor Meg!"