“I’ll do better than that,” said Pasco. “I’ll make my will and constitute her my heir.”
“That’s moonshine and tall talk,” scoffed Zerah.
“It is nothing of the sort,” said Pasco. “Here you are, Rose and Noah, and I’ll make my will before you, and you shall witness it. Then Noah will know what he takes, when he takes Kitty.”
Zerah looked at her husband with surprise. This was the first intimation she had received that he intended to do anything for his niece. She did not see deep enough into his heart to read his reasons. At that moment he was alarmed and uneasy at the story of the apparition of Jason Quarm, whom he knew to be dead, and then at the mysterious tread and the raising of the hasp of the door. He was not a superstitious man, but the guilt on his soul made him subject to terrors. He thought that the spirit of the man he had brought to his death might be walking, and would trouble him, not only on account of the wrong done to him, but also to his daughter. In his mean mind Pasco hoped that by constituting Kitty heir to all he possessed, he might lay the troubled spirit of her father.
“I will do it at once,” said Pepperill, opening his desk and drawing forth ink and pen and paper, and laying them on the table.
“I will show you that I understand legal forms,’I keep a solicitor of my own,’and that I am the man who can deal generously and with a free hand. I, Pasco Pepperill of Coombe Cellars, being in sound condition of mind and body”’
He wrote the words, then looked round complacently and added, “I bequeath to my niece, Kate Quarm, the sum of three thousand pounds. Three thousand pounds,” repeated Pasco, looking round. “Also to my wife Zerah, two thousand pounds and my house at Coombe Cellars, and my house property at Tavistock, inherited from my uncle,”’he turned his head consequentially to look at Noah, then at Rose,’“during the term of her natural life.”
“What do you mean by natural life?” asked Zerah.
“It is an expression always used,” answered Pasco.
“It is nonsense,” said Zerah, “If there be a natural life, there must be one which is unnatural.”