"My dear Miss Deane,"—he began, with deep embarrassment.
"You will tell me how to do everything, will you not?" she interrupted him, with an air of pathetic entreaty—"I want to carry out all his wishes exactly as if he were beside me, watching me—I think—" and her voice sank a little—"he may be here—with us—even now!" She paused a moment. "And if he is, he knows that I do not want money for myself at all—but that if I can do good with it, for his sake and memory, I will. Is it a very great deal?"
"Is it a great deal of money, you mean?" he queried.
She nodded.
"I should say that at the very least my late friend's personal estate must be between six and seven millions of pounds sterling."
She clasped her hands in dismay.
"Oh! It is terrible!" she said, in a low strained voice—"Surely God never meant one man to have so much money!"
"It was fairly earned,"—said Sir Francis, quietly—"David Helmsley, to my own knowledge, never wronged or oppressed a single human being on his way to his own success. His money is clean! There's no brother's blood on the gold—and no 'sweated' labour at the back of it. That I can vouch for—that I can swear! No curse will rest on the fortune you inherit, Miss Deane—for it was made honestly!"
Tears stood in her eyes, and she wiped them away furtively.
"Poor David!" she murmured—"Poor lonely old man! With all that wealth and no one to care for him! Oh yes, the more I think of it the more I understand it! But now there is only one thing for me to do—I must get home as quickly as possible and tell Angus"—here she pointed to the last paragraph in Helmsley's list of bequests—"You see,"—she went on—"he leaves Mary Deane—that's me—to Angus Reay, 'and with Her all that I value.' I am engaged to be married to Mr. Reay—David wished very much to live till our wedding-day—"