managed her business with his own and had enriched her while enriching himself, with what had belonged to Jonah Wood, and to a great number of other people. At all events, if he left everything to George no one could accuse him hereafter—whatever that might mean—with not having done all he could to repair the wrong. He said to himself philosophically that one of two things must happen; either he was to die, and in that case he would do well to die with as clear a conscience as he could buy, or he was to recover, and would then have plenty of time to reflect upon his course without having deprived himself of what he liked.
At last, between the two paths that were open to him, he became confused, and with characteristic coolness he determined to leave the matter to chance. If George Wood showed enough interest in him to come to the door and make inquiries, he would change his will. If the young fellow did not show himself, Totty should have the fortune.
“That’s what I call giving Providence a perfectly fair chance,” he said to himself. A few hours after he had reached this conclusion George actually came to the house.
Then Tom Craik hesitated no longer. The whole thing was done and conclusively settled without loss of time, as Craik had always loved to do business.
It is probable that if George had guessed the importance of the simple act of asking after his relation’s condition, he would have gone home without passing the door, and would have spent so much time in reflecting upon his course, that it would have been too late to do anything in the matter. The problem would not have been an easy one to solve, involving, as it did, a question of honesty in motive on the one hand, and a consideration of true justice on the other. If any one had asked him for his advice in a similar case he would have answered with a dry laugh that a man should never neglect his opportunities, that no one would be injured by the transaction, and that the money belonged by right to the family of the man from whom it had been unjustly taken. But though George could affect a cynically practical business tone in talking of other people’s affairs he was not capable of acting upon such principles in his own case. To extract profit of any sort from what was nothing short of hypocrisy would have been impossible to him.
He had been unable to resist the temptation of asking the news, because he sincerely hoped that the old man was about to draw his last breath, and because there seemed to him to be something attractively ironical in the action. He even expected that Mr. Craik would understand that the inquiry was made from motives of hatred rather than of sympathy, and imagined with pleasure that the thought might inflict a sting and embitter his last moments. There was nothing contrary to George’s feelings in that, though he would have flushed with shame at the idea that he was to be misunderstood and that what was intended for an insult was to be rewarded with a splendid fortune.
Very possibly, too, there was a feeling of opposition concerned in his act, for which he himself could not have accounted. He was not fond of advice, and Constance Fearing had seemed very anxious that he should not do what he had done. Being still very young, it seemed absurd to him that a young girl whom he scarcely knew and had only seen twice should interfere with his free will.
This contrariety was wholly unreasoning, and if he had tried to understand it, he would have failed in the attempt. He would certainly not have attributed it to the beginning of a serious affection, for he was not old enough to know how often love’s early growth is hidden by what we take wrongly for an antagonism of feeling.
However all these things may be explained, George Wood felt that he was in a humour quite new to him, when he rang at Tom Craik’s door. He was elated without knowing why, and yet he was full of viciously combative instincts. His heart beat with a pleasant alacrity, and his mind was unusually clear. He would have said that he was happy, and yet his happiness was by no means of the kind which makes men at peace with their surroundings or gentle toward those with whom they have to do. There was something overbearing in it, that agreed with his natural temper and that found satisfaction in what was meant for an act of unkindness.
He found his father reading before the fire. The old gentleman read, as he did everything else, with the air of a man who is performing a serious duty. He sat in a high-backed chair with wooden arms, his glasses carefully adjusted upon his nose, his head held high, his lips set in a look of determination, his long hands holding the heavy volume in the air before his sight and expressive in their solid grasp of a fixed and unalterable purpose. George paused on the threshold, wondering for the thousandth time that so much resolution of character as was visible in the least of his father’s actions, should have produced so little practical result in the struggles of a long life.
“Won’t you shut that door, George?” said Jonah Wood, not looking away from his book nor moving a muscle.
George did as he was requested and came slowly forward. He stood still for a moment before the fireplace, spreading his hands to the blaze.
“Tom Craik is dying,” he said at last, looking at his father’s face.
There was an almost imperceptible quiver in the strong hands that held the book. A very slight colour rose in the massive grey face. But that was all. The eyes remained fixed on the page, and the angle at which the volume was supported did not change.
“Well,” said the mechanical voice, “we must all die some day.”
CHAPTER VI.
The world was very much surprised when it was informed that Thomas Craik was not dead after all. During several weeks he lay in the utmost danger, and it was little short of a miracle that he was kept alive—one of those miracles which are sometimes performed upon the rich by physicians in luck. While he was ill George, who was disappointed to find that there was so much life in his enemy, made frequent inquiries at the house, a fact of which Mr. Craik took note, setting it down to the young man’s credit. Nor did it escape the keen old man that his sister Totty’s expression grew less hopeful, as he himself grew better, and that her fits of spasmodic and effusive rejoicing over his recovery were succeeded by periods of abstraction during which she seemed to be gazing regretfully upon some slowly receding vision of happiness.
Mrs. Sherrington Trimm was indeed not to be envied. In the first place all immediate prospect of inheriting her brother’s fortune was removed by his unexpected convalescence; and, secondly, she had a suspicion that in the midst of his illness he had made some change in the disposition of his wealth. It would be hard to say how this belief had formed itself in her mind, for her husband was a man of honour and had scrupulously obeyed Craik’s injunction to be silent in regard to the will. He found this the more easy, because what he liked least in his wife’s character was her love of money. Having only one child, he deemed his own and Totty’s fortunes more than sufficient, and he feared lest if she were suddenly enriched beyond her neighbours, she might launch into the career of a leader of society and take up a position very far from agreeable to his own more modest tastes. Sherry Trimm was an eminently sensible as well as an eminently honourable man. He possessed a very keen sense of the ridiculous, and he knew how easily a woman like Totty could be made the subject of ridicule, if she had her own way, and if she suddenly were placed in circumstances where the question of expenditure need never be taken into consideration. She had rarely lost an opportunity of telling him what she should do if she were enormously rich, and it was not hard to see that she confidently expected to possess such riches as would enable her to carry out what Sherry called her threats.
On the other hand Mr. Trimm’s sense of honour was satisfied by his brother-in-law’s new will. There is a great deal more of that sort of manly, honourable feeling among Americans than is dreamed of in European philosophy. Europe calls us a nation of business men, but it generally forgets that we are not a nation of
