"I want to say nothing about the property. My will was made last week. I am determined to throw my means into that channel where it will best contribute to God's service. He will not scorn a late repentance. But Van Ness—it was about Van Ness I wanted to talk to you."
"If your will was made last week, why did you try to bring back poor dead Virginie to advise you?"
"I don't know," said Laidley, coughing nervously—"I don't know. I thought she would confirm me—I—I want to be just to her daughter, God knows!"
"What is your idea of justice?"
"Why this—this," eagerly, catching the judge's red, fat hand in his cold fingers. "Jane will be a woman whom Van Ness would be apt to approve. I know he's fastidious. But she's very delicate and fair—as fine a bit of human flesh as I ever saw. As for mind, she has none. A mere child. He could mould her—mould her. Eh? I think I could throw out an inducement which would lead him to look favorably on her—when she's of a marriageable age, that is. If the girl were married to such a man as Van Ness, surely she would be well placed for life. Nobody could blame me for not making an heiress of her."
"Jane? Van Ness?" said the judge thoughtfully. "Well, Van Ness is a man whom any woman in the country should be proud to marry. But he is impregnable to that sort of thing. And Jane is but a child, as you say. The scheme seems to me utterly unfeasible, Laidley. Besides, what has it to do with her claims on you?"
"It has everything to do with them. I give her instead of money a home and husband such as no money can buy. They must be brought together, judge. You must do it. I have a word to say to Van Ness that will open his eyes to her merits. I will plant the seed, as I might say. It will grow fast enough."
The judge was silent as he helped Laidley, still talking eagerly, down the stairs and into his carriage. The whole fantastic scheme was, as he saw, the cowardly device of the dying man to appease his conscience. That this poor creature should have any power to influence Van Ness, the purest and strongest of men, was a mere bit of braggadocio, which surely did not deceive even Laidley himself.
But what could he do? To stab with reproach, even to argue with this nerveless, worn-out man, flaccid in mind and body, seemed to the kindly old fellow as cruel as to torture a dying fish or other cold-blooded creature of whose condition or capacity for suffering he could have no just idea.
Rebecca Harding Davis.