Fanshawe would not have accepted so very uncordial an invitation to intrude into family mysteries in any other house; but this (he said to himself) was not like any other house; and Marjory had half turned round to look if he was following. Was not that reason enough? He felt somewhat uneasy when he found himself there, and in a false position. He got as far out of the way as possible, behind her chair. And then it gleamed across him that the others might inquire what right he had to stand behind Marjory’s chair? No right! not even the right of an honest intention, a real purpose. He meant nothing; the tie between the two was entirely fortuitous, without intention on either side. What right had he to be there? CHAPTER XX. Mr. Heriot’s will was an old one. As it was read, some of the listeners held their breaths with the strangest painful feeling of anachronism and sense of being suddenly plunged back into an ended world. Little Milly, wistful and dreary, cried at the merest mention that was made of her brothers’ names. She was the one of all who had least personal knowledge of her brothers; but their names had become symbols of grief to her. The others listened with much outward quietness and internal excitement, while all the stipulations of that will which the father had made in full certainty of being survived by his sons, was read in the light of the fact that both his sons had preceded him to the grave. The will set forth that there was twenty thousand pounds to be divided between the younger children; but that little Milly being provided for in chief by her mother’s fortune, only three thousand was to be given to her, the rest being divided between the son Charles and the daughter Marjory of the testator. Mr. Smeaton paused to explain that this sum would not be fully realized, as some part of the property from which it was to be drawn had much deteriorated in value; and went into further detailed descriptions of the property, and the cause of its deterioration, which tried Verna’s patience to the utmost, and made Mr. Charles cross and uncross his long legs in nervous impatience. Even wills, however, come to an end some time. When this was ended there was a pause. There were no unexpected stipulations, no wrong done to any one; all was perfectly just, kind, and fatherly. But this was not all. Except Matilda, who knew nothing, everyone in the room stirred with uneasy expectation when the reading came to an end. Matilda, for her part, obeyed her sister’s directions closely; but that did not prevent her from making an anxious calculation in her mind how much was left of twenty thousand pounds when you subtracted three, and how much was the half of seventeen thousand. This was a mental operation which took her a long time and much thought, and she had not arrived at the other and more difficult and, in short, utterly insoluble question as to what income eight thousand five hundred pounds would produce, when Mr. Charles spoke.