England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
He went to Somerset House. He saw the will; he saw the greatness of the
robbery committed so many years ago; he saw and he felt a wild kind of
almost savage delight in the fact that he could quickly and easily set
the wrong right, for he was one of the trustees. He saw all this, and
yet--and yet--he went away a very unhappy and perplexed man, for he had
seen something else--he had seen a woman's agony and despair. Sandy
Wilson possessed the very softest soul that had ever been put into a big
body. He never could bear to see even a dog in pain. How then could he
look at the face of this girl which, all in a moment, under his very
eyes, had been blanched with agony? He could not bear it. He forgot his
fierce longing for revenge, he forgot his niece Charlotte's wrongs, in
this sudden and passionate desire to succor the other Charlotte, the
daughter of the bad man who had robbed his own sister, his own niece; he
became positively anxious that Miss Harman should not commit herself;
he felt a nervous fear as each word dropped from her lips; he saw that
she spoke in the extremity of despair. How could he stop the words which
told too much? He was relieved when the thought occurred to him to ask
her to meet him again--again when they both were calmer. She had
consented, and he found himself advising her, as he would have advised
his own dear daughter had he been lucky enough to have possessed one. He
promised her that nothing, nothing should be done until they met again,
and so afraid was he that in his interview that evening with his niece,
Mrs. Home, he might be tempted to drop some word which might betray ever
so little that other Charlotte, that instead of going to Tremin's Road
as he had intended, he wrote a note excusing himself and putting off his
promised visit until the following evening.
CHAPTER XL.
CHARLOTTE'S PLEA.
When at last the time drew near for him to bend his steps in the
direction of Somerset House he had by no means made up his mind how to
act. His sympathies were still with Miss Harman. Her face had haunted
him all night long; but he felt that every sense of justice, every sense
of right, called upon him to befriend Mrs. Home. His dearly loved dead
sister seemed to call to him from her grave and to ask him to rescue
those belonging to her, to give again to these wronged ones what was
rightfully theirs. In any case, seeing the wrong as he so plainly did,
he would have felt called upon to take his sister's part in the matter.
But as circumstances now stood, even had Mrs. Home been no relation to
him whatever, he still must have acted for her and her alone. For was he
not the _other trustee_? and did not the very law of the land of his
birth demand that he should see that the terms of the will were carried
out?
He arrived at the square of Somerset House, and found Miss Harman
waiting for him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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