"
"Have you written the last words, sir?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Lecount leaned across the table and offered Noel Vanstone her hand.
"Thank you, Mr. Noel," she said. "The five thousand pounds is the
acknowledgment on your father's side of what I have done for him. The
words in the will are the acknowledgment on yours."
A faint smile flickered over his face for the first time. It comforted
him, on reflection, to think that matters might have been worse. There
was balm for his wounded spirit in paying the debt of gratitude by a
sentence not negotiable at his banker's. Whatever his father might have
done, _he_ had got Lecount a bargain, after all!
"A little more writing, sir," resumed Mrs. Lecount, "and your painful
but necessary duty will be performed. The trifling matter of my legacy
being settled, we may come to the important question that is left. The
future direction of a large fortune is now waiting your word of command.
To whom is it to go?"
He began to writhe again in his chair. Even under the all-powerful
fascination of his wife the parting with his money on paper had not been
accomplished without a pang. He had endured the pang; he had resigned
himself to the sacrifice.
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