Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/267

254 shade redder. He raised one shaky hand to his collar, as though he felt it tight.

"You see, Twisden," he began, twould ha' been all right if my niece hadn't ran away like that. If she had married the colonel, as we wished her"

"What has her not marrying the colonel to do with it?" interrupted the other. "Your leaving your money away from your niece, after telling your brother it should be hers if you had no children, is not to be justified by the plea that she threw over a man whom I suppose she found she did not care about. Admitted that she did this in a foolish way; admitted that she ought not to have run away—that she is self-willed, obstinate, unreasonable;—all this is not sufficient cause for disinheriting her."

"Elizabeth is well enough off, you see, Twisden, without my money; and when I told Anthony I should leave it to her, after my wife's death, I thought she would be like a daughter to me. I'm sure I've felt like a father to her ever since Anthony died. But she has cast me off, Twisden, and, as my wife says, how can I consider her as a child now? My wife is a sensible woman—she would never do anything foolish when I am gone; but she may make other ties. I'm not saying anything against that; it's but natural. She's thirty years younger than I, Twisden; and I may go any day—I know that. She has been a good little wife to me, and it's but fair and right that she should be rewarded."

"A life-interest in the whole of your fortune would surely be thought very liberal! However, if you have made up your mind, I have nothing more to say."