“I'd search anything, if only I could find a way of helping him,” she replied impetuously. “When I see him suffer and can't do anything for him, I feel crazy. I can't sleep sometimes, and stand outside his door in the middle of the night. It does n't matter whether I ought n't to have done it or not,” she cried with an awkward and impatient gesture; “I did it, and I found what I found. What I want to know is, Why should my guardian make his will and keep a loaded revolver in his room unless he thought that—that he was going to die?”
Her eyes filled with tears. Herold, alarmed by her news and touched by her devotion, took her cheap-gloved hand and pressed it. Occupants of the dazzling equipages stared at the elegantly attired gentleman and the dowdy little girl love-making on the public seat. He tried to reassure her.
“Every man with folks depending on him makes a will, so we can dismiss that; and I know heaps of men who keep revolvers.”
“But why should the will be dated two days ago?” asked Unity.
“Was it?”
“The date was written on the envelope, with 'My Will' and his name.”
“In all probability,” said Herold, “the cloud that has come between him and Stellamaris has made him decide to make a fresh will. I know he made one some years ago.”
“But why the revolver?”
“He spoke to me, also some years ago, about getting one. There had been one or two burglaries and an ugly murder—don't you remember?—in the neighbourhood. He must have got it then.”
“It looks too new,” said Unity.