“Thunder!” Fred exclaimed, so energetically that Rex started from his chair. “Don’t be a fool. I shall die as I have lived, and if there is a hereafter, which I doubt, I shall take my chance with the rest. I don’t want your clergy round me, though I wouldn’t object to hearing you say, ‘Our Father.’ It would be rather jolly. I used to know it with a lot of other things, but I quit it long ago,—left all the praying to Louie, who goes on her knees regularly night and morning in spite of my ridicule. Once, when she was posing beautifully, with her long, white dressing-gown spread out a yard or so on the floor, I walked over it on purpose to irritate her, but didn’t succeed. I never did succeed very well with Louie. But it is more my fault than hers, although I was fonder of her than she ever knew. She never pretended to love me. She told me she didn’t when she promised to marry me, and when I asked her if any one stood between us she said no, but added that there was somebody for whom she could have cared a great deal if he had cared for her. I did not ask her who it was, but I think I know, and she would have been much happier with him than with me. Poor Louie! maybe she will have a chance yet; and if she does I am willing.”
His bright, feverish eyes were fixed curiously on Rex, as he went on, “It’s for Louie and her matters I want help, not for my soul; that’s all right, if I have one. Louie is a child in experience, and you must see to her when I am gone, and stand by her till she goes home. There’ll be an awful row with the landlord, and no end of expense, and a terrible muss to get me to America. My man, John, will take what there is left of me to Mount Auburn, if you start him right. Louie can’t go, and you must stay with her and Bertha. If Mrs. Grundy kicks up a row about your chaperoning a handsome girl and a pretty young widow,—and, by Jove, Louie will be that,—bring your aunt to the rescue; that will make it square. And now about my will. I made one last summer, and left everything to Louie on condition that she did not marry again. That was nonsense. She will marry if the right man offers;—wild horses can’t hold her; and I want you to draw up another will, with no conditions, giving a few thousands to the Fresh Air Fund and the Humane Society. That will please Louie. She’s great on children and horses. What is it about a mortgage on old man Leighton’s farm? Louie wanted me to pay it and keep Bertha from going out to service, as she called it. But I was in one of my moods, and swore I wouldn’t. I am sorry now I didn’t. Maybe I have a soul, after all, and that is what is nagging me so when I think of the past. I wish I knew how much the mortgage was.”
“I know; I can tell you,” Rex said, with a great deal of animation, as he proceeded to narrate the particulars of the mortgage and his visit to the Homestead, while Fred listened intently.
“Ho-ho,” he said, with a laugh, when Rex had finished. “Is that the way the wind blows? I thought maybe—but never mind. Five hundred, is it? I’ll make it a thousand, payable to Bertha at once. You’ll find writing-materials in the desk by the window. And hurry up; I’m getting infernally tired.”
It did not take long to make the will, and when it was finished, Rex and Mr. Thurston’s valet John and Louie’s maid Martha, all Americans, witnessed it. After that Fred, who was greatly exhausted, fell into a heavy sleep, and when he awoke Bertha was alone with him. He seemed very feverish, and asked for water, which she gave him, and then bathed his forehead and hands, while he said to her faintly, “You are a trump. I wish I’d made it two thousand instead of one; but Louie will make it right. Poor Louie! she’s going to be so disappointed. It’s a big joke on her. I wonder how she will take it.”
Bertha had no idea what he meant, and made no reply, while he continued, “Say, how does a fellow feel when he has a soul?”
Bertha felt sure now that he was delirious, but before she could answer he went on, “I never thought I had one, but maybe I have. I feel so sorry for a lot of things, and mostly about Louie. Tell her so when I am dead. Tell her I wasn’t half as bad a sort as she thought. It will be like her to swathe herself in crape, with a veil which sweeps the ground. Tell her not to. Black will not become her. Think of Louie in a widow’s cap!”
Weak as he was, he laughed aloud at the thought of it, and then began to talk of the prayer which had “forgive” in it, and which Rex was to say with him.
“Do you know it?” he asked, and, with her heart swelling in her throat, Bertha answered that she did, and asked if she should say it.
He nodded, and Rex, who at that moment came unobserved to the door, never forgot the picture of the kneeling girl and the wistful, pathetic expression on the face of the dying man as he tried to say the words which had once been familiar to him.