“That will be the reason,” Winifred said, with a dreary calm, and she said no more, nor was any name mentioned between them as they drove quietly home. Old Hopkins came out to the steps as she gave the groom the reins.
“If you please, Miss Winifred, Mr. Babington has been asking for you. He said, would you please step into the library as soon as you came back. The gentlemen,” Hopkins added after a pause, with much gravity, “is both there.”
“Will you come, Miss Farrell?” Winifred said.
“If I could be of any use to you, my darling; but I could not, and you would rather that no one was there.”
“Perhaps,” said Winifred, with a sigh. Yet it was forlorn to see her in her deep mourning, walking slowly in her weakness, alone and deserted, though with so much depending on her. She went into the library without even taking off her hat. Mr. Babington was seated there at what had been her father’s writing-table, and Tom and George were both with him. Tom stood before the fire, with that air of assumption which he had never put off—the rightful-heir aspect, determined to stand upon his rights. George had his wife with him as usual, and sat with her whispering and consulting at the other end of the room. Mr. Babington had been writing; he had a number of papers before him, but evidently, from the silence, only broken by the undertones of George and his wife, which prevailed, had put off all explanations until Winifred was present. Neither of the brothers stirred when she entered. George had forgotten, in the composure of a husband whose wife requires none of the delicacies of politeness from him, those civilities which men in other circumstances instinctively pay to women, and Tom was too much out of temper and too deeply opposed to his sister to show her any attention. Mr. Babington rose and gave her a chair.
“Sit here, Miss Winifred. I shall want to place various things very clearly before you,” he said. “Now, will you all give me your attention?” His voice subdued Mrs. George, who had sprung up to go to her sister-in-law with a beaming smile of familiarity. She fell back with a little alarm into her chair at her husband’s side.
“You are all aware of the state of affairs up to this point,” Mr. Babington said. “Your father’s large fortune, left in succession, first to one and then to the other of his sons, to be withdrawn from both as they in turn displeased him, has been finally left to Miss Winifred, whom he thought the most likely of his three children to do him credit and spend his money fitly. Exception may be taken to what he did, but none, in my opinion, to the reason. He thought of that more than anything else, and he chose what seemed to him the best means to have what he wanted.”
“He must have been off his head; I shall never believe anything else, though there may not be enough evidence,” Tom said.
“I daresay my father was right,” said George in his despondent voice.
“I think, from his point of view, your father was quite right; but there are many things that men, when they make their wills, don’t take into consideration. They think, for one thing, that their heirs will feel as they do, and that they have an absolute power to make themselves obeyed. This, unfortunately, they very often fail to do. Miss Winifred becomes heir under a condition with which she refuses to comply.”