CHAPTER I.

_MAKING A WILL._

"THE blind lower, Sparks!"

"Yes, sir."

"Bring my watch to this table. Mind you don't take it away again. Extraordinary that you never can remember! I can't see the clock, lying here. My writing-case has gone too. Put it beside me. Mr. Harvey promised to come, you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was that a ring at the front door? Go down and see. Let me know who it is—sharp! and don't dawdle."

Sparks vanished with his air of wooden composure, which might or might not have meant patience; and Mr. Detroit lay under luxurious wraps on a wide couch at the foot of the bed, breathing sonorously.

He looked very ill, oppressed, sunken, and pallid. Once upon a time, Mr. Detroit had been a fine and well-built man, but old age had bowed and shrunken his frame, and the iron grip of sickness had laid him low.

Neither old age nor suffering had been softening in their effects. There were lines of weakness, but none of tenderness, around the cold lips; and no gleams of changeful light were visible in the stern eyes.

Mr. Detroit stood singularly alone in the world. He was without kith or kin, unless of the most distant description. He had made, in his lifetime, few needless acquaintances, and fewer friends. His relations with those who worked under and for him were purely business relations. They did so much for him, and he paid them so much for the doing. That was all. He took no interest in them personally; neither did he expect them to take any personal interest in him.

Except from a business point of view, it mattered little to any human being that he was ill. Nobody loved him; nobody had any cause to think of his name with affection or gratitude. The "joy of doing kindnesses" was a joy unknown to Gilbert Detroit. Not a man, woman, or child was consciously the better for his seventy years' residence on this earth. He had lived for himself, pleased himself and enriched himself exclusively. Now life seemed to be drawing to a close, and a new anxiety came upon him.

It was an anxiety which had not troubled him hitherto. Like most old men in good health, while knowing himself old, he had reckoned on an indefinite term of life. He had gone on carefully amassing wealth, adding pound to pound, never worried by the question, What was the use? For he had no child, no brother or sister, no nephew or niece, to inherit the whole. That had not mattered while he was well. The mere delight of money-getting had been sufficient in itself. To some natures there is a keen delight in it, hardly to be understood by natures of a different mould; and the higher cravings which exist originally in every man may be so withered by long neglect, that at last they actually die out, the lower and meaner satisfaction becoming all sufficient—just for the time! Things were so with Gilbert Detroit.

But health failed, and death threatened; and then the question arose, Whose should all this money be, which he had laboriously gathered together?

The thought troubled him a good deal. It kept him awake at night, and haunted him by day. No man likes to feel that his life's toil has been thrown away. The object of Mr. Detroit's toil, through a goodly part of seventy years, had been wealth, more and more wealth. Now he had the wealth, and he might not stay to enjoy it. Then, whose should it be? Who should enjoy the fruits of his labour? Relatives—he had none! Friends—he had none! Servants and employés—well, he had, but he did not care for them. The poor, the sick, the needy—Bah! Gilbert Detroit had never given of his riches "in charity" during life; why should he so give after death? He did not approve of people, poor or sick or needy. It was their own fault, commonly: or if not, it ought to have been; and in any case he had nothing to do with the matter.

At length he decided to send for his solicitor, Edmund Harvey, an honourable and high-principled man, not wealthy and still young, but doing well in his profession. Mr. Harvey was "sensible," the old man told himself; and Mr. Harvey might see a road out of the perplexity.

This step taken, neither Sparks nor any other member of the household knew five minutes' peace until Harvey arrived.

The room in which Mr. Detroit lay was large, airy, and replete with comforts. Nothing which money could purchase had been spared, except the touch of womanly fingers. Mr. Detroit trusted to Sparks, and scorned the idea of a nurse. Sparks had not done badly for the sick man, on the whole: but his arrangements were apt to be, like himself, somewhat stiff and angular.

"Mr. Harvey, sir."

Sparks ushered in the expected visitor, and stolidly awaited orders.

"Mr. Harvey! How do you do?" the old man said, with no relaxation of the rigid lines round his mouth. It might be that from long disuse of the exercise, he had forgotten how to smile. "Excuse my getting up. I am ill. Pray sit down. A chair, Sparks—no, not there. This side. How stupid you are! Yes; now you may go; and mind you shut the door."

The new-comer, a slightly-made and not tall man, perhaps between thirty-five and forty in age, in colouring pale, in manner frank and gentleman-like, took the offered seat.

"Sparks told me of your indisposition," he said. "I am sorry to hear it. A chill, I believe."

"A chill originally, perhaps. One theory is as good as another to account for an illness."

"Are you feeling somewhat better?"

"Not better at all. Not likely to be so," was the tart response.

After a pause, Mr. Detroit continued—"I have seen a doctor, to please my man. Quite useless, for I knew that nothing could be done. My father died in the same manner, and I have no faith in physicking at my age. But Sparks was urgent, and I consented to call in Sir William Mann, just for an opinion. I told him plainly I didn't require any medicine—didn't believe in medicine—and he told me quite as plainly that in that case he could do nothing for me, and his coming again would be useless. I like outspokenness, and I liked the man. We shook hands over it, and I shall try something that he recommended, but it will make no difference. I don't mean to say that there is immediate danger, only it is the beginning of the end."

He spoke with a hard and chilly indifference still, as he might have alluded to a necessary business journey.

"Life may be lengthened, even where full recovery is perhaps impossible; and painful symptoms may be lessened," suggested Harvey. "You are wise at least to try what can be done."

Mr. Detroit shook his head impatiently.

"Enough on that subject," he said. "I am too old to be argued out of my way, and I require your help in another quarter. I wish to make my will."

He fixed his leaden eyes upon the younger man. Harvey signified assent.

"You shall have the needful papers. Most of them are in yonder bureau. If it is not troubling you too much, perhaps you would unlock the upper half with this key. Thanks. There is a roll of papers in the right-hand drawer—yes—those—if you will be so good as to bring them. You will find all the information needed, as to investments, and so forth. The entire amount at my disposal amounts to close upon £50,000. Not bad for one who began life without sixpence in his pocket—eh?"

Mr. Detroit spoke complacently, and Harvey answered, "No, indeed!" with a touch of surprise. He knew Mr. Detroit to be a man successful in business, and successful too, of late, in certain speculations, but he had not quite expected this.

"And you propose to leave the bulk of it to—"

"That is the question!" said Mr. Detroit. "I have nobody belonging to me. I am at a loss what to do with the money."