“Then my will must be made to-morrow or next day at latest. This illness has warned me to delay no longer. My niece’s child will be my heir.”
His words set me musing and turning over in my mind how this could be.
“Your lordship is childless, then?” The remark slipped from me almost unawares; but they were fateful words, as the result proved. “I beg your pardon,” I added, seeing surprise and some annoyance written on his face.
“Not at all,” he answered courteously. “I supposed you were acquainted with my family affairs, for they are no secret. I have a son, though no communication has passed between us for nearly four years. He set me and my wishes at defiance by marrying beneath him, consequently will inherit little more than an empty title. I mean to leave my fortune to my niece’s child. The boy was committed to my care when his parents went to India, two years ago. He is a fine little fellow, and it shows how close in attendance you have been on me if you did not even know he was in the house—”
“Was your son’s name Charles—that of the girl he married Una?” I asked, scarcely heeding his last words. My heart was beating faster than it should, my voice in my earnestness less steady than it ought to be.
“Yes. But why these questions?”
I knew he was well enough now to hear the truth, therefore I answered: “Because it is my belief your lordship’s son is dead. I will relate to you a sad story; when I have finished you will be able to judge whether or not you are concerned in it.” Then I told, as briefly as I could, the Croft House tragedy; and as I did so, read in the ever-increasing interest with which he listened to my tale that my suspicions were correct.
That the man I had to deal with was of a proud, egotistical, unsympathetic nature I was well aware; that the death of his only son would not vitally affect him I had rightly guessed; but I was scarcely prepared for the interest he displayed on learning of the existence of his grandchild. The better nature of the man seemed touched. I spoke of little Charles’s beauty, his likeness to his father, even hinted at a resemblance to Lord Welbury himself. With the feverish impatience of an invalid he demanded that the boy should be sent for at once.
“He cannot come without his mother. The two lives are bound together as one.”
“Then write to the mother and bid her bring him,” was the imperious reply. And the speaker turned his face away as though to intimate no more was to be said. The affair was settled.