"An enquiry into my wife's justification for the following terms of her will:—
"'I will and bequeath to my husband, Sir Hildebrand Oates, Knight, the sum of fifteen shillings to buy himself a scourge to do penance for the arrogance, uncharitableness and cruelty with which he has treated myself and my beloved children for the last thirty years.'
"This dispassionate enquiry I dedicate to my son Godfrey and my daughter Sybil."
Brother and sister regarded each other with drawn faces and mutually questioning eyes.
"We can't leave this lying about," said Godfrey. And he tucked the manuscript under his arm.
The gondola took them through the narrow waterways to the Grand Canal of the Giudecca, where, on the Zattere side, all the wave-worn merchant shipping of Venice and Trieste and Fiume and Genoa finds momentary rest, and across to the low bridge-archway of the canal cutting through the island, on the side of which is Lady Layard's modest English hospital. Yes, said the matron, Sir Hildebrand was there. Pneumonia. Getting on as well as could be expected; but impossible to see him. She would telephone to their hotel in the morning.
That night, until dawn, Godfrey read the manuscript, a document of soul-gripping interest. It was neither an apologia pro vita sua, nor a breast-beating peccavi cry of confession; but a minute analysis of every remembered incident in the relations between his family and himself from the first pragmatical days of his wedding journey. And judicially he delivered judgments in the terse, lucid French form. "Whereas I, etc., etc...." and "whereas my wife, etc., etc...."—setting forth and balancing the facts—"it is my opinion that I acted arrogantly," or "uncharitably," or "cruelly." Now and again, though rarely, the judgments went in his favour. But invariably the words were added: "I am willing, however, in this case, to submit to the decision of any arbitrator or court of appeal my children may think it worth while to appoint."
The last words, scrawled shakily in pencil, were:
"I have not, to my great regret, been able to bring this record up-to-date; but as I am very ill and, at my age, may not recover, I feel it my duty to say that, as far as my two years' painful examination into my past life warrants my judgment, I am of the opinion that my wife had ample justification for the terms she employed regarding me in her will. Furthermore, if, as is probable, I should die of my illness, I should like my children to know that long ere this I have deeply desired in my loneliness to stretch out my arms to them in affection and beg their forgiveness, but that I have been prevented from so doing by the appalling fear that, I being now very poor and they being very rich, my overtures, considering the lack of affection I have exhibited to them in the past might be misinterpreted. The British Consul here, who has kindly consented to be my executor, will..."
And then strength had evidently failed him and he could write no more.