CHAPTER XIII.
THE WILL.
When Mr. Thornton left Gerard and Alice after his threat of disinheritance, he went straight to the office of Hugh McGregor, and asking to see him alone, announced his intention of making his will.
“It’s time I did it,” he said with a little laugh, and then as Hugh seated himself at his table, he dictated as follows:
To a few charitable institutions in New York he gave a certain sum; to his children, Gerard and Alice, a thousand dollars each, and the rest of his property he gave unconditionally to his beloved wife, Mildred F. Thornton.
“Excuse me, Mr. Thornton,” Hugh said, looking up curiously from the paper on which he was writing, “isn’t this a strange thing you are doing, giving everything to your wife, and nothing to your children. Does she know,—does she desire it?”
“She knows nothing, but I do. I know my own business. Please go on. Write what I tell you,” Mr. Thornton answered impatiently, and without further protest Hugh wrote the will, which was to make Mildred the richest woman in the county, his hand trembling a little as he wrote Mildred F., and thought to himself, “That is Milly’s name. She did not deceive him there. Does he know the rest?”
“You must have three witnesses,” he said, when the legal instrument was drawn up.
“Tom Leach is in the next room. I saw him. He will do for one,” Mr. Thornton said, with a grim smile, as he thought what a ghastly joke it would be for Tom to witness a will which cut Alice off with a mere pittance. “Have him in.”
So Tom was called, together with another man who had just entered the office. A stiff bow was Mr. Thornton’s only greeting to Tom, who listened while the usual formula was gone through with, and then signing his name, Thomas J. Leach, went back to his books, with no suspicion as to what the will contained or how it would affect him.
“I will keep the paper myself,” Mr. Thornton said, taking it from Hugh, with some shadowy idea in his brain that it might be well to have it handy in case he changed his mind and wished to destroy it.