“I said to your father at the time everything that could be said.” Mr. Sturgeon wanted to show his sympathy, but he felt that, thoroughly as everybody present must be persuaded that old Tredgold was an old beast, it would not do to say so in his own house on his funeral day. The other executor said nothing except “Tchich, tchich!” but he wiped his bald head with his handkerchief and internally thanked everything that he knew in the place of God--that dark power called Providence and other such--that Katherine Tredgold had refused to have anything to say to his Fred. Dr. Burnet was not visible at all to Katherine except in a long mirror opposite, where he appeared like a shadow behind her chair. “And this poor man,” said Katherine, looking towards poor Bob Tredgold, with his staring eyes; “is there nothing for him?” “Not a penny. I could have told you that; I have told him that often enough. I’ve known him from a boy. He shall keep his corner in my office all the same. I didn’t put him there, though he thinks so, for his brother’s sake.” “He shall have a home in the cottage--when it is built,” said Katherine, with a curious smile; and then she became aware that in both these promises, the lawyer’s and her own, there was a bitter tone--an unexpressed contempt for the man who was her father, and who had been laid in his grave that day. “I hope,” she said, “this is all that is necessary to-day; and may I now, if you will not think it ungracious, bid you good-bye? I shall understand it all better when I have a little time to think.” She paused, however, again after she had shaken hands with them. “There is still one thing. I am going to meet my sister when she arrives. May I have the--the happiness of telling her? I had meant to give her half, and it is a little disappointment; but I should like at least to carry the news. Thanks; you must address to her here. Of course she will come at once here, to her own home.” She scarcely knew whose arm it was that was offered to her, but took it mechanically and went out, not quite clear as to where she was going, in the giddiness of the great change. “This is a strange hearing,” Dr. Burnet said. “How kind of you to stand by me! Yes, it is strange; and I was pleasing myself with the idea of giving back the house and her share of everything besides to Stella. I should have liked to do that.” “It is to be hoped,” he said, “that she will do the same by you.” “Oh, no!” she cried with a half laugh, “that’s impossible.” Then, after a pause, “you know there’s a husband and children to be thought of. And what I will have is really quite enough for me.” “There is one thing at your disposal as you please,” he said in a low voice. “I have not changed, Katherine, all these years.” “Dr. Burnet! It makes one’s heart glad that you are so good a man!” “Make _me_ glad, that will be better,” he said.