“Nothing all all, that I can see,” answered Jack. “Sir Dace is not in a condition to have trouble thrown upon him.”
Good Jack! generous Jack! There are not many such self-denying spirits in the world.
And what would have been done is beyond guessing, had Sir Dace not solved the difficulty himself. Solved it by dying.
But I must first tell of a little matter that happened. Although we had heard what we had, one could not treat the man cavalierly, and the Squire—just as good at heart as Jack—went up to make inquiries at Oxlip Grange, as usual. One day he and Colonel Letsom strolled up together, and were asked to walk in. Sir Dace wished to see them.
“If ever you saw a living skeleton, it’s what he is,” cried the Squire to us when he came home. “It is in the nature of the disease, I believe, that he should be. Dress him up in his shroud, and you’d take him for nothing but bones.”
Sir Dace was in the easy-chair by his bedroom fire, Coralie sitting with him. By his side stood a round table with papers and letters upon it.
“I am glad you have chanced to call,” he said to them, as he sent Coralie away. “I wanted my signature witnessed by some one in influential authority. You are both county magistrates.”
“The signature to your will,” cried the Squire, falling to that conclusion.
“Not my will,” answered Sir Dace. “That is settled.”
He turned to the table, his long, emaciated, trembling fingers singling out a document that lay upon it. “This is a declaration,” he said, “which I have written out myself, being of sound mind, you perceive, and which I wish to sign in your presence. I testify that every word written in it is truth; I, a dying man, swear that it is so, before God.”