“Here is enough for John’s needs,” she said. “Oh, Graf, dear, we must contrive for him to have some of it, because, you know, it belongs by right to him; for if Captain Dallington had not made that will, John, who is heir, must have had it all.”
Margaret took some of the shining pieces almost caressingly, for she thought of the beneficent power there might be in them, and was resolved that she would get Mr. Harris to set his mind to the problem which often troubled her—how to help John without offending him.
“How much of this do we use every year, Graf?” she asked.
“Very little, indeed,” was the reply, “for I have a source of income which prevents me from using a penny of this money on myself. All this you will know of some day, for my will is made, and all that I have, as well as all that Mr. Dallington had, is left to you. You will never be a rich woman, though, Margaret; and I hope you will be content to let Mr. Dallington fight this battle of limited means himself. I am an old man now, and I have learnt a few things in my life, and one is that if a battle be fought nobly, even though one’s antagonist be ignoble, the result is beneficial to a real, true man. John Dallington’s great trouble is that he wants more money than he has. He must learn either to do without it or to get it. That is the daily worry which is spoiling many men’s lives; but John is made of stuff too good surely to let it spoil his. Why does he not sell some of the land, and live on what is left?”
“Sell the land, Graf? Sell it, when it belonged to his father, and his father before him?”
“Yes, sell it; why not?”
“Well, of course, if you cannot see why not, I can scarcely hope to make you,” said Margaret, in tones which showed that she was offended.
Mr. Harris smiled as he went into the shop to serve a customer; but he believed that Margaret felt, as he did, that lack of money, so long as the absolute necessaries of life could be secured, ought not to be considered the great affliction which many people seemed to consider it.
The customer proved to be Dr. Stapleton. It was a strange thing that the only person taken into the doctor’s confidence was this man, whom he often heard spoken of as an irreligious man who had “never been converted.” He had been thus spoken of on this very day, and the doctor had irritably replied that he hoped he never would be, for it would be a great pity for Harris to be changed into the sort of thing that many were who believed themselves undoubtedly converted.
The shopkeeper threw open the door of his little sanctum, and the doctor passed through.