A pertinent question, Richard Causton! Showing the good results, too, of your period of forced abstinence from strong drink, and your lonely watch over the sick-bed—wellnigh the death-bed—of Bergan Arling. Up to this point, we have deemed your case hopeless; now, truly, we think better of it. To recognize one's folly is the first step toward breaking from its bondage. To have learned that the fruits of righteousness do not ripen on the tree of worldly wisdom, is, perhaps, to feel the first faint hunger for the saving fruitage of the tree of life. There may be the making of a man—a contrite, humbled, subdued, scarred, but free man—in you yet!
Ignoring, or unconscious of, these grounds of hope for the future, however, Dick continued to busy himself with his fears for the present. Nor did they prove to be causeless; he was not yet in sight of his door, when he heard the sound of impatient knocking thereat. Stealing to a point where he could see without being seen, his worst fears were realized,—the unwelcome visitor was Doctor Remy.
"De puerta cerrada el diablo se torna,—From a locked door, the devil turns away," he muttered, settling himself in his hiding place, with the intention of remaining there until the anticipated departure.
But the doctor was not to be thus balked. After repeated knockings, with short intervals of waiting, he finally drew back from the door with the evident intention of bursting it in; whereupon Dick hastened to make his appearance, doing his best to assume an air of easy nonchalance.
"He who brings good news, knocks hard," he called out, by way of arresting the doctor's attention, and saving the door. "Or, as the Germans say, He who brings, is welcome; I suppose you have come to settle our little account."
"Yes, I have come to settle accounts with you," replied Doctor Remy, with grim irony. "Why didn't you tell me about this other will?"
"What other will?" asked Dick, innocently.
"I am in no humor for trifling," returned Doctor Remy;—"Major Bergan's will, that you witnessed a fortnight ago."
"C'est la glose d' Orleans,—that is to say, the commentary is more obscure than the text," answered Dick, shaking his head, as if he could make nothing of it.
"Don't try my patience too far," rejoined the doctor, menacingly. "I have just seen Mr. Tatum, and he told me of the will, and named you as one of the witnesses."