Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/46

 "He did," said Abner. "It is in Enoch's hand." Then he added: "But the date is a month before your brother came here."

"Yes," said Gaul; "it was not written in this house. My brother sent it to me. See—here is the envelope that it came in, postmarked on that date."

Abner took the envelope and compared the date. "It is the very day," he said, "and the address is in Enoch's hand."

"It is," said Gaul; "when my brother had set his signature to this will he addressed that cover. He told me of it." The hunchback sucked in his cheeks and drew down his eyelids. "Ah, yes," he said, "my brother loved me!"

"He must have loved you greatly," replied Abner, "to thus disinherit his own flesh and blood."

"And am not I of his own flesh and blood too?" cried the hunchback. "The strain of blood in my brother runs pure in me; in these children it is diluted. Shall not one love his own blood first?"

"Love!" echoed Abner. "You speak the word, Gaul—but do you understand it?"

"I do," said Gaul; "for it bound my brother to me."

"And did it bind you to him?" said Abner.

I could see the hunchback's great white eyelids drooping and his lengthened face.

"We were like David and Jonathan," he said. "I 33