“There is still more to tell you, and it is best to get it over,” he said. “Even if it had been signed, I believe it could not have been acted upon, after this long lapse of years, though I should have done my best, you may be sure. But as things are, I have nothing in my power. This property, like the rest, is strictly limited to the descendants of the elder branch.”
“And papa, of course,” said Frances sadly, “is very proud. A doubt of any kind as to perfect legality would have—I mean to say he would never have taken advantage of your good will.”
“Which, as you see, I have no chance of exerting. Still,” he went on, “I am not without some hope that I may persuade him, seeing that there is now no doubt of our great-grand-aunt’s intention, to look upon Craig-Morion as his home for life. As regards this, things are made easier by his having no son.”
But Frances shook her head. The tears were slowly welling up into her eyes, and she made no attempt to hide them.
“I wish I could thank you as you deserve,” she said. “I feel horribly selfish at being so disappointed, when—I should remember that it could not but have been a wrench to you to part with the old place. And, too, when you have been so very, very good to Horace. I am afraid my father would never agree to any arrangement such as you propose.”
“If only—” he began impulsively, then checked himself again. “Frances, I cannot bear to see you in such trouble, and I may succeed with your father by showing him that even by the terms of this will, failing a son, he would have been in much the same position of only life-renting the place. At any rate I will do my best.”
“Then you have no doubt as to its being well to tell him?” she asked.
“None whatever,” he replied warmly. “You yourself, or I, if you prefer it, or—both together, perhaps, can do so.”
Then followed a long silence. Frances quietly wiped her tears away, while the colour slowly returned to her cheeks.
“I think I had better go home now,” she said.