The older man looked up at his visitor, and said very gently and with the same pleasant smile that always came into his face when he spoke to either Harry or Laura, “My dear Horace, when you reach my age you will be anxious to settle up all your earthly quarrels so that when the time comes for you to leave this world you may do so with a feeling that you leave no enemies behind.”
“But do you mean to tell me,” demanded Mr. Van Kuren, “that you have become a friend of that good-for-nothing nephew of yours again? I can’t understand it after the way in which he treated you ten years ago.”
“You must remember, Horace, that Sam is the only blood relation I have left in this world. He came to see me a few months before I left America, and I found him so regretful for the past, and so much changed for the better that I have now fully as much confidence in him as I ever had in my own son.”
Mr. Van Kuren shrugged his shoulders, and after a moment’s hesitation, replied, “There’s nothing in the world that would induce me to place any confidence whatever in Sam Dexter, even if he is your only blood relation. It is entirely through him that the misunderstanding occurred which separated us for years, and I have heard of him in New York of late as connected with some very dubious enterprises.”
“But my dear Horace,” continued the old gentleman, “you must not believe everything that you hear. I have no doubt that my nephew’s career has not been altogether what it should have been; but that he is thoroughly contrite now I have no reason to doubt. When he first came to see me I supposed, of course, that he was in want of money again, and was therefore inclined to be a little suspicious, but when he not only assured me, but proved to me, that he had a handsome sum laid by out of his savings for a future day, that he wanted nothing of me, and was only anxious to heal up old breaches while I was still alive, then I was forced to admit that he was, indeed, a different man from the one whom I had known formerly.”
“Do you mean to say that he never tried to beg or borrow anything from you, that is to say, since this last reconciliation?” demanded Mr. Van Kuren, incredulously.
“I certainly do mean to say exactly that,” replied the other emphatically. “He is occupying the old house at present but that is because I asked him to do so. It is not safe to leave one’s home in the hands of servants or caretakers.”
Mr. Van Kuren shrugged his shoulders again and remarked, in a tone that showed he had no faith in the repentance or sincerity of Mr. Dexter’s nephew: “Well, just mark my words, that man will still manage to injure you in some way. He is not to be trusted.”
For a few moments the old gentleman sat quietly looking into the fire, then he lifted his eyes and said, “I should be sorry to have as bad an opinion of Sam as you have, but it may be that you are nearer right in your estimate of him than I am. Nevertheless it’s an old man’s fancy, and one that should be, for that reason, pardoned, to feel that after he is gone he will be succeeded at his home and in his estate by one of his own blood rather than by a stranger.”
“And so,” remarked Mr. Van Kuren dryly, “you have arranged to make Sam your heir, have you?”