CHARLOTTE'S PLEA.
When at last the time drew near for him to bend his steps in the direction of Somerset House he had by no means made up his mind how to act. His sympathies were still with Miss Harman. Her face had haunted him all night long; but he felt that every sense of justice, every sense of right, called upon him to befriend Mrs. Home. His dearly loved dead sister seemed to call to him from her grave and to ask him to rescue those belonging to her, to give again to these wronged ones what was rightfully theirs. In any case, seeing the wrong as he so plainly did, he would have felt called upon to take his sister's part in the matter. But as circumstances now stood, even had Mrs. Home been no relation to him whatever, he still must have acted for her and her alone. For was he not the other trustee? and did not the very law of the land of his birth demand that he should see that the terms of the will were carried out?
He arrived at the square of Somerset House, and found Miss Harman waiting for him.
She came up to him at once and held out her hand. His quick eye detected at a glance that she was now quite calm and collected, that whatever she might have done in the first agony of her despair yesterday, to-day she would do nothing to betray herself. Strange to say, he liked her far less well in this mood than he had done yesterday, and his heart and inclination veered round again to his wronged niece and her children with a sense of pleasure and almost triumph.
They began to walk up and down, and Miss Harman, finding that her companion was silent, was the first to speak.
"You asked me to meet you here to-day. What do you want to say to me?"
Good heavens! was she going to ride the high horse over him in this style? Sandy's small eyes almost flashed as he turned to look at her.
"A monstrous wrong has been done, Miss Harman," he answered. "I have come to talk about that."
"I know," replied Charlotte. "I have thought it all out. I know exactly what has been done. My grandfather died and left a sum of twelve hundred a year to my—to his wife. He left other moneys to my father and his brother. My father and his brother, my uncle, disregarded the claims of the widow and the orphan child. They appropriated the money—they—stole it—giving to my grandfather's widow a small sum during her life, which small sum they did not even allow to be retained by her child."
"That is pretty much the case, young lady. You have read the will with tolerable accuracy."