dull, dead sound of a deep sob. It banished the smile and made him pause. He looked at the reflection of his face – could it be the face of a scoundrel? Was he playing a base part? No, he was merely asserting his rights; his plain legal rights – nothing more.
He opened a cupboard in the wall and took down a bunch of keys. Selecting one key, he stepped up to a cabinet and opened it. In a compartment were many loose papers. Now to see if by chance there existed a will already. He glanced at the papers one by one and threw them aside. When he had finished his inspection he took a hasty turn about the room. No trace – he had been sure of it!
Again the deep sob came from within. Hugh Ritson walked noiselessly to the inner door, opened it slightly, bent his head, and listened. He turned away with an expression of pain, picked up his hat, and went out.
The night was very dark. He strode a few paces down the lonnin and then back to the porch. Uncovering his head, he let the night wind cool his hot temples. His breath came audibly and hard. He was turning again into the house when his eye was arrested by a light near the turning of the high-road. The light was approaching; he walked toward it, and met Josiah Bonnithorne. The lawyer was jouncing along toward the house with a lantern in his hand.
"Didn't you meet the stableman?" said Hugh in an eager whisper.
"No."
"The blockhead must have taken the old pack-horse road on the fell-side. One would be safe in that fool's stupidity. You have heard what has happened?"
"I have."
"There is no will already."
"And your father is insensible?"
"Yes."
"Then none shall be made."
There was a pause, in which the darkness itself seemed full of speech. The lantern cast its light only on an open cart-shed in the lane.
"If your mother is the Grace Ormerod who married Robert Lowther and had a son by him, then Paul was that son – the heir to Lowther's conscience-money."
"Bonnithorne," said Hugh Ritson – his voice trembled and broke – "if it is so, then it is so, and we need do nothing. Remember, he is my father. It is not within belief that he wants to disinherit his own son for the son of another man."
Mr. Bonnithorne broke into a half-smothered laugh, and stepped close into the cobble-hedge, keeping the lantern down.
"Your father – yes. But you have seen to-day what that may come to. He has always held you under his hand. Paul has been the old man's favorite."
"No doubt of that." Hugh crept close to the lawyer. He was wrestling in the coil of a tragic temptation.
"If he recovers consciousness, he may be tempted to recognize as his own his wife's illegitimate son. That" – the low tone was one of withering irony – "will keep her from dishonor, and you from the estates."
"At least he is my brother – my mother's son. If my father wishes to provide for him, God forbid that we should prevent."
Once more the half-smothered laugh came through the darkness.
"You have missed your vocation, Mr. Ritson. Believe me, the Gospel has lost a fervent advocate. Perhaps you would like to pray for this good brother; perhaps you would consider it safe to drop on your knee and say, 'My good brother that should be, who has ever loved me, whom I have ever loved, take here my fortune, and leave me until death a penniless dependent on the lands that are mine by right of birth.'"
Hugh Ritson's breath came in gusts through his quivering, unseen lips.
"Bonnithorne, it cannot be – it is mere coincidence, seductive, damning coincidence. My mother knows all. If it were true that Paul was the son of Lowther, she would know that Paul and Greta must be half-brother and half-sister. She would stop their unnatural union."
"And do you think I have waited until now to sound that shoal water with a cautious plummet? Your mother is as ignorant of the propinquity as Greta herself. Lowther was dead before your family settled in Newlands. The families never once came together while the widow lived. And now not a relative survives who can tell the story."
"Parson Christian?" said Hugh Ritson.
"A great child just out of swaddling-clothes!"
"Then the secret rests with you and me, Bonnithorne?"
"Who else? The marriage must not come off. Greta is Paul's half-sister, but she is no relative of yours – "
"You are right, Bonnithorne," Hugh Ritson broke in; "the marriage is against nature."
"And the first step toward stopping it is to stop the will."
"Then why are you here?"
"To make sure that there is no will already. You have satisfied me, and now I go."
There was a pause.
"Who shall say that I am acting a base part?" said Hugh, in an eager tone.
"Who indeed?"
"Nature itself is on my side."
The man was conquered. He was in the grip of his temptation.
"I am off, Mr. Ritson. Get back into the house. It is not safe for you to be out of sight and sound."
Mr. Bonnithorne was moving off in the darkness, the lamp before his breast; its light fell that instant on Hugh Ritson's haggard face.
"Wait; put out your lamp."
"It's done."
All was now dark.
"Good-night."
"Good-night."
With slow whispers the two men parted.
The springy step of Josiah Bonnithorne was soon lost in the road below.
Hugh Ritson stood for awhile where the lawyer left him, and then turned back into the house. He found the cabinet open. In the turmoil of emotion he had forgotten to close it. He returned to it, and shuffled with the papers to put them back in their place. At that moment the door opened, and a heavy footstep fell on the floor. Hugh glanced up startled. It was Paul. His face was plowed deep with lines of pain. But the cloud of sorrow that it wore was not so black as the cloud of anger when he saw what his brother was doing and guessed his purpose.
"What are you about?" Paul asked, mastering his wrath.
There was no response.
"Shut up that cabinet!"
Hugh turned about with a flushed face.
"I shall do as I please!"
Paul took two strides toward him.
"Shut it up!"
The cabinet was closed. At the same moment Mrs. Ritson came from the inner room. Paul turned on his heel.
"He is thinking of the will," said the elder brother. "Perhaps it is natural that he should distrust me; but when the time comes he is welcome to the half of everything, and ten thousand
