How It All Came Round

by L. T. Meade

"His very unjust will," corrected Mr. Home.

"Yes, sir, I agree with you, it was unjust. It is to talk to you about that will I have come to you to-night."

"Sit nearer to the fire," replied Mr. Home, poking up the handful in the grate into as cheerful a blaze as circumstances would permit.

"It was, as you say, an unjust will," proceeded old Jasper, peering hard with his short-sighted eyes at the curate, and trying to read some emotion beneath his very grave exterior. Being unable to fathom the depths of a character which was absolutely above the love of money, he felt perplexed, he scarcely liked this great self-possession. Did this Home know too much? "It was an unjust will," he repeated, "and took my brother and myself considerably by surprise. Our father seemed fond of his young wife, and we fully expected that he would leave her and her child well provided for. However, my dear sir, the facts could not be disputed. Her name was not mentioned at all. The entire property was left principally to my elder brother John. He and I were partners in business. Our father's money was convenient, and enabled us to grow rich. At the time our father died we were very struggling. Perhaps the fact that the money was so necessary to us just then made us think less of the widow than we should otherwise have done. We did not, however, forget her. We made provision for her during her life. But for us she must have starved or earned her own living."

"The allowance you made was not very ample," replied Mr. Home, "and such as it was it ceased at her death."

"Yes, sir; and there I own we—my brother and I—were guilty of an act of injustice. I can only exonerate us on the plea of want of thought. Our father's widow was a young woman—younger than either of us. The child was but a baby. The widow's death seemed a very far off contingency. We placed the money we had agreed to allow her the interest on, in the hands of our solicitor. We absolutely forgot the matter. I went to Australia, my brother grew old at home. When, five or six years ago, we heard that Mrs. Harman was dead, and that our three thousand pounds could return to us, we had absolutely forgotten the child. In this I own we showed sad neglect. Your wife's visit to my niece, through a mere accident, has recalled her to our memory, and I come here to-night to say that we are willing, willing and anxious, to repay that neglect, and to settle on your wife the sum of three thousand pounds; that sum to be hers unconditionally, to do what she pleases with."

When Jasper ceased to speak, Mr. Home was quite silent for a moment, then he said, "My wife is away at present. I would rather not trouble her with money matters during her short holiday. When she returns I will tell her what you say and communicate to you the result."

There was neither exultation nor annoyance in the quiet manner in which these few words were spoken. Uncle Jasper found it impossible to understand this man. He spoke as indifferently as if three thousand pounds were nothing to him and yet, to judge from appearances, his whole yearly income seemed hardly to represent the interest on so much capital. Did this quiet manner but hide deep designs? Jasper Harman fidgeted in his chair as this thought occurred to him.

"There is just one thing more to add," he said. "I will leave you my club address. Kindly communicate with me there. I should like, while carrying out my elder brother's wish, to act entirely on it without troubling him in any way. He is, I am sorry to say, very ill, so ill that the least, the very least, agitation is dangerous to him. He feels with me the unintentional injustice done to your wife, but he cannot bear the subject alluded to.

"Would it not rather be an ease to his mind to feel that what he looks on and perhaps dwells on as a sin has been expiated, as far as his own earthly act can expiate it?" inquired the clergyman gently.