“Hoping that you fully understand and appreciate my motives, and that I shall find in you a friend and adviser, I am, yours truly,
“John Matthewson.”
The old lawyer read this twice; then, with his hands under his coat-tails and his glasses on the top of his head, walked up and down his room, muttering to himself:
“Just what I told Ned,—the man is a scoundrel, and he will, with all his fine talk of generosity, bring a New York lawyer here to see to it, as if he wouldn’t have fair play and get every cent his due, though I’ll be blamed if I wouldn’t take advantage of any quirk or loop-hole to crawl out of, if there was one, which there isn’t. As Rossie’s brother he is her heir, of course, and the whole thing goes to him, for I’ll bet my head Ned will never take a dollar. Poor boy, as if he hadn’t trouble enough with the loss of the girl, without this new thing to bother.”
And if ever a man stood in need of sympathy it was Everard, who seemed completely crushed, and who looked so white and changed that even his best friends forbore speaking to him of Rossie, though they talked much of her among themselves, and many tears were shed for the young girl who had been so great a favorite, and whose grave was so far away. That Everard loved her with more than a brother’s love was conceded now by all, and no one thought to blame him for it, but pitied him in his sorrow, which he did not try to conceal. When Lawyer Russell took the doctor’s letter to him, and asked what he thought of it, he evinced no surprise or dissatisfaction.
“That’s all right,” he said, “he is her heir, and he shall have every dollar,—remember, every dollar. I would not take it from her, I will not have it from him; and you must do the business for me. I give it into your hands. I cannot confer with him; I should forget myself sometime, and fly at his throat. I will give you all the papers pertaining to the estate. I have kept the matter perfectly straight, so there will be no trouble in finding just how much he is worth. Now mind, don’t you ever dare to think I will have a penny of the money, for I will not, so help me Heaven! till Rossie rises from her grave to give it to me. Then you may talk to me, and not till then.”
This was Everard’s decision, which both Mr. Russell and Beatrice approved, though both mourned bitterly over the fate which gave Judge Forrest’s hoarded stores into the hands of one as unprincipled as Dr. Matthewson, whose arrival was anxiously looked for.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE NEW HEIR.
He stepped from the car one June afternoon, elegantly habited in the latest Parisian style of coat, and vest, and hat, with a band of crape around the latter, and a grieved look on his handsome face, as if he were thinking of the dear little girl, dead so far away, and whose fortune he had come to take. With him was a sharp, shrewd-looking man, with round, bright eyes, which saw everything at a glance, and a decidedly foreign accent. To him the doctor always spoke in German, and in this language the two talked together for a few moments after alighting upon the platform in Rothsay. Evidently they were not expected, for no one was there to meet them, but the doctor inquired for the best hotel, and making his way thither registered his own name and that of his friend, “Walter Klyne, Esq., New York City.” Then, engaging two of the best rooms in the house, and ordering dinner at seven o’clock, he started out to reconnoiter, going first to Everard’s office and greatly astonishing the young man, who did not know that he had yet landed in New York. It might be thought, perhaps, that the sight of him, with his band of crape upon his hat, and the peculiar air of sadness he managed to infuse into his voice and manner, would awaken in Everard a feeling of sympathy and kindness for one in whose sorrow he had so large a part, but it produced just the contrary effect, and though he went forward with offered hand to meet him, there swept over him a sensation of distrust, and aversion, and dread,—a feeling of horror for which he could not account, any more than he could explain the sudden chill which crept through his veins, as if Rossie’s cold, dead hands were touching his, and Rossie’s white, still face pressed against his own.