have no idea but that Lionel is still the heir. You should not jump to unjust conclusions: not one of them has ever asked me how my property was left; or has attempted, by the smallest word, to influence me in its disposal.”
“Then, what has influenced you? Why have you done it?” demanded Mr. Bitterworth, his voice becoming more subdued.
To this question Mr. Verner did not immediately reply. He appeared not to have done with the defence of his wife and her sons.
“Mrs. Verner is not of a covetous nature; she is not unjust, and I believe that she would wish the estate willed to Lionel, rather than to her sons. She knows no good reason why it should not be willed to him. And for those sons—do you suppose either of them would have gone out to Australia, had he been cognisant that he was heir to Verner’s Pride?”
“Why have you willed it away from Lionel?”
“I cannot tell you,” replied Mr. Verner, in a tone of sharp pain. It betrayed to Mr. Bitterworth what sharper pain the step itself must have cost.
“Is it this which has been on your mind, Verner,—disturbing your closing years?”
“Ay, it is that; nothing else,” wailed Mr. Verner, “nothing else! nothing else! Has it not been enough to disturb me?” he added, putting the question in a loud, quick accent. “Setting aside my love for Lionel, which was great,—setting aside my finding him unworthy, it has been a bitter trial to me to leave Verner’s Pride to a Massingbird. I have never loved the Massingbirds,” he continued, dropping his voice to a whisper.
“If Lionel were unworthy,”—with a stress upon the “were,”—“you might have left it to Jan,” spoke Mr. Bitterworth.
“Lady Verner has thrown too much estrangement between Jan and me. No. I would rather even a Massingbird had it than Jan.”
“If Lionel were unworthy, I said,” resumed Mr. Bitterworth. “I cannot believe he is. How has he proved himself so? What has he done?”
Mr. Verner put up his hands as if to ward off some imaginary phantom, and his pale face turned of a leaden hue.
“Never ask me,” he whispered. “I cannot tell you. I have had to bear it about with me,” he continued, with an irrepressible burst of anguish; “to bear it here, within me, in silence; never breathing a word of my knowledge to him, or to any one.”
“Some folly must have come to your cognisance,” observed Mr. Bitterworth, “though I had deemed Lionel Verner to be more free from the sins of hot-blooded youth than are most men. I have believed him to be a true gentleman in the best sense of the word—a good and honourable man.”
“A silent stream runs deep,” remarked Mr. Verner.
Mr. Bitterworth drew his chair nearer to his friend, bending towards him, and speaking solemnly.
“Verner’s Pride of right (speaking according to our national notions) belonged to your brother, Sir Lionel, Stephen. It would have been his, as you know, had he lived but a month or two longer; your father would not have willed it away from him. After him it would have been Lionel’s. Sir Lionel died too soon, and it was left to you; but what injunction from your father was it that accompanied it? Forgive me asking you the question?”
“Do you think I have forgotten it?” wailed Mr. Verner. “It has cost me my peace—my happiness, to will it away from Lionel. To see Verner’s Pride in possession of any but a Verner will trouble me so—if, indeed, we are permitted in the next world still to mark what goes on in this—that I shall scarcely rest quiet in my grave.”
“You have no more—I must speak plainly, Stephen,—I believe that you have no more right in equity to will away the estate from Lionel, than you would have, were he the heir-at-law. Many have said—I am sure you must be aware that they have—that you have kept him out of it; that you have enjoyed what ought to have been his, ever since his grandfather’s death.”
“Have you said it?” angrily asked Mr. Verner.
“I have neither said it nor thought it. When your father informed me that he had willed the estate to you, Sir Lionel having died, I answered him that I thought he had done well and wisely; that you had far more right to it, for your life, than the boy Lionel. But, Stephen, I should never sanction your leaving it away from him after you. Had you possessed children of your own, they should never have been allowed to shut out Lionel. He is your elder brother’s son, remember.”
Mr. Verner sat like one in dire perplexity. It would appear that there was a struggle going on in his own mind.
“I know, I know,” he presently said, in answer. “The worry, the uncertainty, as to what I ought to do, has destroyed the peace of my later days. I altered my will when smarting under the discovery of his unworthiness; but, even then, a doubt as to whether I was doing right, caused me to name him as inheritor, should the Massingbirds die.”
“Why, that must have been a paradox!” exclaimed Mr. Bitterworth. “Lionel Verner should inherit before all, or not inherit at all. What your ground of complaint against him is, I know not; but whatever it may be, it can be no excuse for your willing away from him Verner’s Pride. Some folly of his came to your knowledge I conclude.”
“Not folly. Call it sin: call it crime,” vehemently replied Mr. Verner.
“As you please; you know its proper term better than I. For one solitary instance of—what you please to name it—you should not blight his whole prospects for life. Lionel’s general conduct is so irreproachable (unless he be the craftiest hypocrite under the sun), that you may well pardon one defalcation. Are you sure you were not mistaken?”
“I am sure. I hold proof positive.”
“Well, I leave that. I say that you might forgive him, whatever it may be, remembering how
