Fifteen years! The time was fatal to his prospects; it mattered nothing to his career that now, in his twenty-first year, he happened to be a member of the antiquated sect of True Believers; it would matter everything if he were bound to it for another fifteen years. He would then be nearing forty; how could he become the leader of the Free Evangelicals, foremost figure of the Free Church Union in its march toward liberal Theology, if in fifteen years’ time he was still saddled with the tenets of True Belief to the extent of having to preach them? He saw the meaning of it. His uncle had not trusted him; and was as far from trusting him as ever, at the moment when he had placed in his hands the other will to have it destroyed. It stung him to the quick that a simple and rather stupid old man should thus have got the better of him--to the extent at least of controlling the offer or withdrawal of a prospective income of four hundred a year. A hundred and fifty of it depended on his remaining in the local ministry; that did not so much matter; but the rest depended on his remaining in the connection at the very height of his powers; and that he did not for a moment intend. No; even in the shock of disappointment and all the callowness of untried youth, he knew that he was worth more. And in a moment he had decided: henceforth his career was to be a tussle between him and old Uncle Trimblerigg; they would see which would come out first. While thus he straightened out his problem below, Uncle Phineas was being straightened out upstairs. It was the easier job of the two and would soon be over; Jonathan had no time to lose. And so collectedly, with presence of mind, he restored the letter to its envelope, licked and sealed it, and returned letter and will to the drawer from which he had taken them, leaving them to be found by others. Three days later he prayed and preached at the funeral with great success. People flocked to hear him, for it was already known in the surrounding district, which had sampled his early efforts, that he was going to become a great orator. Within a year he was due to enter the ministry: and the True Believers swelled with a sense of triumph that once more they were going to have among them a shining light. In the domestic privacy of the Trimblerigg family, when the funeral was over, the will was ceremonially opened and read; and Jonathan received with Christian resignation the announcement that Davidina was her uncle’s chief beneficiary. A few days later he gave Davidina a chance to speak of the thing he knew, by inquiring: ‘Uncle Phineas left a letter for you, didn’t he?’ ‘Yes,’ said Davidina, and was for saying no more. But Mr. Trimblerigg could not quite let it stop at that. ‘Anything that concerns others besides yourself?’ ‘Yes,’ said Davidina again. ‘He told me that you were going to marry Caroline, and sent you his love.’