"I have promised, Shaw; I can't go back from my word," he replied rather indistinctly. Then he drew out his large silk pocket-handkerchief and blew his nose with violence.
"The new will be ready for your signature tomorrow. But"—here Mr. Twisden paused a moment and looked his old friend full in the face—"in case you ever wish it destroyed, I shall keep the old one to be acted upon."
"All right—all right," returned William Shaw, with a kind of nervous precipitation. "You can keep the old one, if it's only to show why I altered it, and—and I can tell my wife when I go home that it's done."
Poor old William! He returned to Farley two days later, patched up for the time being by his doctor, and easy in the knowledge that he would have a radiant welcome when he announced that the new will was actually signed.
A fortnight later, at a meet of the hounds, he heard a rumour that Colonel Wybrowe's engagement to the American heiress was at an end. It was said that the girl's father had refused to settle a large sum upon his future son-in-law, and that Wybrowe would not marry without this The transaction was said to have been carried on upon purely mercantile principles: so much for so much. Miss Krupp was greatly taken with the colonel's fine appearance and social standing. As the wife of a man not only highly connected, but the darling of so many drawing-rooms in the very highest circles, she was assured that her "position" would be better than that of many a peeress. If so worldly a little nature
