Morris expected Rodney Merriam to manifest wrath and indignation at the recital of Ezra Dameron’s ill-doing, but the old gentleman in Seminary Square listened in silence, and at the end, with something more than his usual urbanity, asked Morris to have a cigar. He filled a cob pipe for himself, however, and this was always a sign, Morris had observed, of inward perturbation.
“Well, what are we going to do about it?” asked Merriam, presently.
“That’s the rub—there’s not much of anything that you can do. The trust is a wide-open thing. He isn’t required to report to anybody and he gives no bond; but he must get the court’s approval before he sells anything; and then he must reinvest the money in other realty. It is significant that he has been selling at desperate prices toward the end of his trusteeship. He must be hard up.”
Merriam had never spoken of his brother-in-law to Leighton except in terms of respect, and he hesitated now.
“My sister’s idea in making that will,” he began quietly, “was to deal generously with a blackguard. It was her pride. She had made a mistake.”
He paused and the blood rushed to his face. He was checking his wrath with difficulty.
“He had ruined her life. We were all opposed to her marrying Ezra Dameron; but she was not a child, but a grown woman. She left her property to Zelda through him; and she wouldn’t admit to the rest of us, even at the end, that she did not trust him. She doubtless thought his avarice would protect her child.”
He blurted this out fiercely, with a certain shamefacedness, and then paused abruptly and stared at Leighton. Why, he asked himself, was he speaking thus to the son of Morris Leighton!
The situation angered him and his wrath kindled again as his memory swept the past; but he controlled himself, and bent forward in his chair.
“Morris, I’m not at all surprised or disappointed in him. I have never, at any time since Zee came home, had the slightest idea that her father would ever be able to turn over her property. I’ve been curious to know just what excuse he would offer for failing to settle on the day appointed. And I have hoped that he would fail,—that’s the truth about it. I have hoped that if he were to prove himself a thief I might get Zee to leave him. It hasn’t, perhaps, been creditable to my sense of Christian duty that I have felt so; but I have wanted to get that reptile at my mercy. I should like to show him mercy; it would be a revenge worth living for,—to be merciful to that ugly hypocrite. Now, just what has Ezra been doing?”