“Oh, Caroline!” he stepped toward her and then stopped, frantic and despairing. “Caroline! Caroline!” he cried again, “can you ever forgive me? You know—you must know I ain’t ever meant to keep it. It’s all yours. I just didn’t give it to you right off because ... because.... Oh, Sylvester, tell her I never meant to keep it! Tell her!”
The lawyer shook his head. “I did tell her,” he said, with another shrug, “and she tells me she won’t accept it.”
“What?” the captain’s eyes were starting from his head. “What? Won’t take it? Why, it’s hers—hers and Steve’s! It always has been! Do you cal’late I’d rob my own brother’s children? Don’t talk so foolish! I won’t hear such talk!”
Caroline was close to tears, but she was firm.
“It isn’t ours,” she said. “It is yours. Our father kept it from you all these years. Do you suppose we will keep it any longer?”
Captain Elisha looked at her determined face; then at the lawyer’s—but he found no help there. His chin thrust forward. He nodded slowly.
“All right! all right!” he said, grimly. “Sylvester, is your shop goin’ to be open to-morrer?”
“Guess not, Captain,” was the puzzled reply. “It’s Thanksgiving. Why?”
“But Graves’ll be to home, won’t he? I could find him at his house?”
“I presume you could.”