Dr. Rane handed him the note. Yes: it was even so. The other life had dropped, and Oliver Rane's and his wife's alone remained.
"My father has called that an unlucky tontine," remarked Richard. "I have heard it said that if you want a child to live, you should put it into a tontine, for the tontine lives are sure to arrive at a green old age, to the mutual general mortification. This has been an exception to the rule. I am sorry about George Massey. I wonder what he has died of?"
"Last long, in general, do you say?" returned Dr. Rane musingly. "I don't know much about tontines myself."
"Neither do I," said Richard. "I remember hearing of one tontine when I was a boy: five or six individuals were left in it, all over eighty then, and in flourishing health. Perhaps that was why my father and Mr. Gass took up with one. At any rate, it seems that you and Bessy are the only two remaining in this."
"I wonder if a similar condition of things ever existed before as for a man and his wife to be the two last in a tontine?" cried Dr. Rane, slightly laughing. "Bessy, practically it can be of no use to us conjointly; for before the money can be paid, one of us must die. What senseless things tontines are!"
"Senseless indeed," answered Bessy. "I'd say something to it if we could have the money now. How much is it?"
"Ay, by the way, how much is it? What was it that each member put in at first, Richard? I forget. Fifty pounds, was it? And then there's the compound interest, which has been going on for thirty years. How much would it amount to now?"
"More than two thousand pounds," answered Richard North, making a mental calculation.
Dr. Rane's face flushed with a quick hot flush: a light shone in his eye: his lips parted, as with some deep emotions. "More than two thousand pounds!" he echoed under his breath. "Two thousand pounds! Bessy, it would be like a gold-mine."
She laughed slightly. "But we can't get it, you see, Oliver. And I am sure neither of us wishes the other dead."