“He had one once—a boy. But it must have died when a baby, soon after Mrs. Darley did. And now do you know why I do not want you to come here with stories of riches for Maurice Darley? He’s daft on the subject already. I do not want him to go so far that they will take him away from me.”
“You are fond of him, then?” asked Sydney.
“He is all I have. If he goes I must live alone. It is my delight to care for him. The little money David left me is enough for my simple wants, Maurice lives like a lord in his fancies. Why do you want to come and disturb us in our content?”
“Because I must,” Sydney broke out, as passionately as he could in restrained tones. “Don’t you understand that the money which belongs to Maurice Darley I have been diverting to other uses? It was left to him by Mr. Tyler, but I tore up the will. He made it about three hours after another one, in which he had left everything to the woman who had acted as a mother to me for twenty years.
“He was a vacillating old man. I felt that he might change his mind back again if he should live three hours longer, so when he was dead I tore up the last will. I alone knew what it contained, and I have been a miserable man ever since.”
Sydney bowed his head on his hands, and there was silence in the little room for a moment or two.
“You—you are a criminal, then?” said the old lady presently.
Sydney winced at the term, but at the same time he felt a sense of relief, as one does after taking a plunge into cold water. At any rate the shock of the first contact was over.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” he answered. “And I am ready to suffer the penalty. The only excuse I have to offer is the fact that what I did, I did not for myself, but for those I love, who have done so much for me. And now it is not joy, but misery, I shall bring them.”
“You are repentant, though,” murmured the old lady softly. “It is not as if you were hardened and only gave up when some one else found it out and forced you to. There is hope for you in that. But how much money is there?”