Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/47

 would have given my right arm for Enoch and he would have died for me."

"He did!" said Abner.

I saw the hunchback start, and, to conceal the gesture, he stooped and thrust the trunk of the apple tree a little farther into the fireplace. A cloud of sparks sprang up. A gust of wind caught the loose sash in the casement behind us and shook it as one, barred out and angry, shakes a door. When the hunchback rose Abner had gone on.

"If you loved your brother like that," he said, "you will do him this service—you will sign this deed."

"But, Abner," replied Gaul, "such was not my brother's will. By the law, these children will inherit at my death. Can they not wait?"

"Did you wait?" said Abner.

The hunchback flung up his head.

"Abner," he cried, "what do you mean by that?" And he searched my uncle's face for some indicatory sign; but there was no sign there—the face was stern and quiet.

"I mean," said Abner, "that one ought not to have an interest in another's death."

"Why not?" said Gaul.

"Because," replied Abner, "one may be tempted to step in before the providence of God and do its work for it."

Gaul turned the innuendo with a cunning twist. 34