"I don't care for the will. I should not care for ten wills, if I had no right to the money they bequeathed me. I have no right to this, and I will not touch a farthing of it."
Mr. Wedderburn's surprise could only expend itself in one long stare. In all his lawyerly experience he had never come across an announcement so savouring of chivalry. The legatees he had had the pleasure of doing business with were only too eager to grasp their good fortune, and if any little inconvenient pricks of conscience were so ill-mannered as to arise, they were speedily despatched back again by the very legal thought--If I do take it I but obey the will.
"There never was such a thing heard of as the refusing of a fortune legally bequeathed," cried the lawyer.
"I daresay there has been, many a time. If not, this will be a precedent."
"You'll be so laughed at," persisted Mr. Wedderburn. "You'll be set down--I'm afraid people will be for setting you down as a lunatic."
"Let them," said the doctor. "They shan't confine me as one without my own certificate. Mr. Wedderburn," he continued in a graver tone, "I am serious in this refusal. I feel that I have no right whatever to this money of Lady Oswald's. She has paid me liberally for my services----"
"If you only knew how many thousands inherit money daily who have no right to it," interrupted Mr. Wedderburn.
"Doubtless they do. I was going to observe that it is not so much my having no right to it, that would cause me to decline, as the fact that others exist who have a right. I----"
"But the will gives you a right," interposed the lawyer, unable to get over his surprise.
"A legal right, I am aware it does. But not a just one. No, I will not accept this legacy."