‘I suppose, sir, that you will consequently consider yourself entitled to contest the will?’ fiercely interrupted the angry clergyman.
‘One moment, if you please. I shall do nothing of the kind; neither will my wife, with my consent. Mr Franklin had a right to do as he chose with his money; and I must say I never put any faith in his promises. This gentleman is welcome to what he has got, if he can arrange with his conscience—which I daresay he can. How and why he has got it, I don’t profess to understand; but I shall certainly not endanger my peace of mind by trying to take it from him.’
Mr Blackford had felt himself a little overborne by the general animosity; but he did not want for spirit, and now spoke up coolly and defiantly. ‘If anybody thinks fit to waste his time and money in trying to upset this will, he is quite welcome. I shall defend my rights.—And my conscience is quite easy, thank you, Mr Wedlake.’ Mr Blackford, having fired his shot, took himself off with his prize.
Tom had to devote the rest of the day to consoling his wife, who was fairly broken down by the revelation of Uncle Franklin’s cruel duplicity.
‘I can’t think he would have done it, Tom,’ she said. ‘I really believe he did get to like me at last; and what object could he have had in behaving in such a wicked way? I am quite certain that that Mr Blackford has cheated us, somehow. Did you notice how his voice shook, and how pale he was? and what made him run up-stairs as he did, without waiting for our leave?’
Tom was silent for a few seconds. ‘There is a great deal about the whole business that is strange and unaccountable,’ said he—‘a great deal that I can’t understand—and I don’t mean to try, Lucy dear. We needn’t break our hearts about Uncle Franklin’s money. We love one another—we are young and strong—let us put all this away from us like a bad dream, and settle down once more in the old happy way.’
Meanwhile, Mr Blackford was walking fast and far through London streets in a perfect delirium of self-gratulation, unshadowed by one thought of remorse or any dread of retribution. All was safely over; everything had fallen out well for him and his wicked scheme. The prize was fairly in his clutches at last, apparently beyond the power of any man to wrest it from him. The will by which he benefited was no clumsy forgery; it bore the testator’s genuine signature; it had been executed in the presence of disinterested witnesses, and, for all those witnesses could say, on the very date which it purported to bear.
No wonder that Mr Blackford exulted in the impregnability of his position, and indulged in castle-building to a considerable extent. He could not bring himself to return at present to his dull and dingy office, gloomy with the recollections of failure and poverty. In a very short time he would leave it for ever; he would continue his career in more cheerful quarters and under very different conditions. A professional man with plenty of money has no need to run after patients or clients; they, on the contrary, will run after him. His fortune should double and treble itself in his careful hands; municipal distinctions should be his; some day, perhaps, a seat in parliament. He would make a good marriage; he would shake hands with lords—most fascinating of dreams to him as a professed Radical—his working hours should be spent in easy and pleasant labour, and his leisure in carefully regulated dissipation. And so he strode through the lighted streets, intoxicating himself with the pleasures of imagination.
Another man, at the same time, was prowling about London streets, not through the broad and blazing main thoroughfares, but by gloomy byways, half lit by the feeble glimmer of thinly scattered lamps, where only an occasional footstep sounded upon the flags—a man who shrank from the presence of his kind, whom he insanely imagined were all leagued in a cruel and inexplicable conspiracy against his reputation and his life—a man accompanied wherever he went by mocking persecutors, who dinned into his ears, themselves unseen, furious denouncings, hideous blasphemies, fiendish jests; daring him to face them, and eluding his every effort to do so; threatening him continually with exposure and punishment for impossible crimes; taunting him with the universal enmity of mankind. And one name formed the ever-recurring burden of this diabolical chant—the name of the man in whom he had trusted, and who had betrayed him to his foes; the name of the man who was in their secrets, and was helping them to bring their victim to ruin; who had taken his money for pretended aid, only to join his persecutors in laughing at his misery.