'I will never acknowledge even the possibility of my recognising these descendants of my former brother as anything to me,' she said. And the quietness with which she spoke was very impressive. 'I have given them assistance because I believe them to be worthy people in sore need. I may even do so again if you tell me their need continues. But that is all. I should be false to my dead father if I did otherwise.
'Still, the late Lord Elvedon—your father, I mean—looked forward to his elder son's children being reinstated,' Colonel Mildmay ventured to say. 'Why then, in the actual circumstances of his younger grandchildren being to the full as worthy and in far greater need, why treat them so differently?'
Lady Myrtle hesitated, for half a second only, but even that was something.
'My father could not have contemplated the possibility of Bernard's descendants being—of their wiping out his disgrace,' she said at last confusedly.
'Exactly,' Colonel Mildmay replied quickly. 'And it was only natural. But as he did not contemplate a state of things which has actually come to pass, how can his directions affect you with regard to these facts?'
Lady Myrtle again shook her head. She had grown very pale, but otherwise she was completely self-controlled.
'I cannot argue in that way. I do not even pretend to be logical,' she said. 'I can only repeat—so it is. So now you understand. If I did not leave that part of my property which I conscientiously believe to be at my own disposal to the one I have chosen—the child who it seemed to me had been sent to brighten in some measure the loneliness of my old age;' and here her firm clear voice trembled, 'then—my will must stand as it is, and all destined for Jacinth, and in a sense for you yourselves, shall go to the two hospitals I have selected as the most worthy of help. I will have no compromises, no half measures.'
Colonel Mildmay bowed.
'Then let it be so,' he said. 'It is certainly not for me to dictate to you, dear Lady Myrtle.'
She seemed a little perplexed by his manner.