, and the return I had made him for his
devoted love. "I know how I have been to blame; and I am going to pay
you for your goodness and care by breaking your heart for you--by
upsetting all your plans. Oh, Richard! You had better let it all go on!
Think how everybody knows about it!"

He shook his head. "I don't care a straw for that," he said. And I am
sure he did not.

"No," he said firmly, getting up, and walking up and down the room; "it
is all over, and we must make the best of it. I shall still have
everything to do for you under the will; and while you mustn't expect me
to see you often, just for the present time, at least, you know I shall
do everything as faithfully as if nothing had occurred. You must write
to me whenever you think my judgment or advice would do you any good.
And I shall be always looking after things that you don't understand,
and taking care of your interests, whether you hear from me or not.
You'll always be sure of that, whatever may occur."

"Oh," I faltered, with a sudden frightened feeling of loneliness and
loss, in the midst of my new freedom, "I can't feel as if it were
all over."

"I don't know how this terrible mistake about the will occurred," he
went on, without noticing what I said: "it was only a--mercy that I
found it when I did. It was between the leaves of a book, an old volume
of Tacitus; I took it down to look at the title for the inventory, and
it fell out."

"That was the book he had in his hand when I saw him last, that night
before he died."

"Yes? Then after you went up-stairs I suppose he was thinking of you,
and he took out the will to read it over, and maybe left it out, meaning
to lock it up again in the morning."

"And in the morning he was not well," I said, "and perhaps went away
leaving it lying on the book; I remember, Ann said there were several
papers lying on the table, when she arranged the room."

"No doubt," said Richard, "she shut it up in the book it laid on, and
put it on the shelf. But it is all one how it came about. The will is
all correct and duly executed. One of the witnesses was a clerk, who
returned yesterday from South America, where he had been gone for
several months. The other is lying ill at his home in Westchester, but I
have sent to-day and had his deposition taken. It is all in order, and
there can be no dispute."

I think at that moment I should have been glad if it had been found
invalid. There was something so inevitable