“It is very curious,” he said, “very curious indeed,” but his manner was somewhat absent and “carried.”
“Before we talk about this,” he went on, touching the large envelope in his hand, “I should like to tell you that I am much happier about Horace Littlewood’s affairs. I have—we have, he and I—arranged something. One of my agencies will shortly be vacant, he is just the man I should like for it, and a short training will make him quite competent. I should have offered it to him in any case. It gives him the independence he longs for, and—I do not see that your father can now oppose the engagement.”
Frances hesitated.
“It is very, very good of you,” she said; “you must let me thank you, even though you may have acted primarily as Horace’s friend. Certainly, my father will have no reason for any objection—no valid reason. But except for,”—and she glanced at the packet—“the change in his position, I doubt if he would have got over his hurt feelings towards Mrs Littlewood.”
A look of real distress came over Ryder Morion’s face.
“I think it will be all right,” he began. “I think Horace and I can make him see things differently, independently of,”—here he broke off—“and,” he resumed, “once Mrs Littlewood takes in that Horace has a right to act upon his own judgment and that he is no longer a boy at her beck and call, she too will act reasonably, I feel sure. But—I scarcely know how to tell you what must be told. This discovery of yours, so strangely made, practically leads to nothing. You had not observed,” and again he hesitated with a painful consciousness that Frances was growing terribly white, “that—that the will is not signed.”
They were in the porch by now. Frances sank down on the stone bench beside her, without speaking.
“Not signed!” she gasped out at last; and for all reply Ryder Morion held out the last page for her to see, and a glance satisfied her.
“Oh dear!” she murmured, “how could I have been so blind? Not signed!”
He gave her a moment or two in which to recover herself a little.