“I am not so sure about that; but still—Your brother Tom has been warning me, Miss Winifred—I hope to save you from a false step; that you are thinking of—going against your father’s will”—
“Did Tom tell you so, Mr. Babington?”
“He did. I confess that I was not surprised. I have expected you to do so all along; but so fine a fortune as you have got is not to be lightly parted with, my dear young lady. Think of all the power it gives you, power to do good, to increase the happiness, or at least the comfort, perhaps of hundreds of people. If it was in your brothers’ hands, do you think it would be used as well? We must think of that, Miss Winifred, we must think of that.”
“If it was in my power,” she said, looking at him wistfully, “I should think rather of what is just. Can anything be good that is founded upon injustice? Oh, Mr. Babington, put yourself in my place! Could you bear to take away from your brother, from any one, what was his by nature—to put yourself in his seat, to take it from him, to rob him?”
“Hush, hush, my dear girl! I am afraid I have not a conscience so delicate as yours. I could bear a great deal which does not seem bearable to you. And you must remember it is no doing of yours. Your father thought, and I agree with him, that you would make a better use of his money, and do more credit to his name, than either of your brothers. It throws a fearful responsibility upon you, we may allow; but still, my dear Miss Winifred”—
“Mr. Babington,” she cried, interrupting him, “you are my oldest friend—oh yes, my oldest friend! You know, if I am forced to do this, it will only be deceiving from beginning to end. I will only pretend to obey. I will be trying all the time, as I am now, to find out ways of defeating all his purposes, and doing—what he said I was not to do!”
Her eyes shone almost wildly through the tears that stood in them. She changed colour from pale to red, from red to pale; her weakness gave her the guise of impassioned strength.
“Miss Winifred,” said the lawyer very gravely, “do you know that you are guilty of the last imprudence in saying this, of all people in the world, to me?”
“Oh,” she cried, “you are my friend, my old friend! I never remember the time when I did not know you. It is not imprudent, it is my only hope. Think a little of me first, whom you knew long before this will was made. Tell me how I can get out of the bondage of it. Teach me, teach me how to cheat everybody, for that is all that is left to me! how to keep it from them so as best to give it to them. Teach me! for there is no one I can ask but you.”
The lawyer looked at her with a very serious face. Her great emotion, her trembling earnestness, the very force of her appeal, as of one consulting her only oracle, hurt the good man with a sympathetic pain. “My dear,” he said, “God forbid I should refuse you my advice, or misunderstand you, you who are far too good for any of them. But, Miss Winifred, think again, my dear. Are you altogether a free agent? Is there not some one else who has a right to be consulted before you take a step—which may change the whole course of your life?”