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‘I won’t witness the signature, and I won’t see it signed.’

‘Damn thee, Mary! thou’rt a wicked wench,’ Beechinor whispered in hoarse, feeble tones. He saw himself robbed of the legitimate fruit of all those interminable years of toilsome thrift. This girl by a trick would prevent him from disposing of his own. He, Edward Beechinor, shrewd and wealthy, was being treated like a child. He was too weak to rave, but from his aggrieved and furious heart he piled silent curses on her. ‘Go, fetch another witness,’ he added to the lawyer.

‘Wait a moment,’ said Baines. ‘Miss Beechinor, do ye mean to say that ye will cross the solemn wish of a dying man?’

‘I mean to say I won’t help a dying man to commit a crime.’

‘A crime?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘a crime. Seven years ago Mr. Beechinor willed everything to his brother Mark, and Mark ought to have everything. Mark is his only brother–his only relation except me. And Edward knows it isn’t me wants any of his money. North Staffordshire Infirmary indeed! It’s a crime!… What business have you,’ she went on to Edward Beechinor, ‘to punish Mark just because his politics aren’t—-‘

‘That’s beside the point,’ the lawyer interrupted. ‘A testator has a perfect right to leave his property as he chooses, without giving reasons. Now, Miss Beechinor, I must ask ye to be judeecious.’

Mary shut her lips.

‘Her’ll never do it. I tell thee, fetch another witness.’

The old man sprang up in a sort of frenzy as he uttered the words, and then fell back in a brief swoon.

Mary wiped his brow, and pushed away the wet and matted hair. Presently he opened his eyes, moaning. Mr. Baines folded up the will, put it in his pocket, and left the room with quick steps. Mary heard him open the front-door and then return to the foot of the stairs.

‘Miss Beechinor,’ he called, ‘I’ll speak with ye a moment.’

She went down.

‘Do you mind coming into the kitchen?’ she said, preceding him and turning up the gas; ‘there’s no light in the front-room.’

He leaned up against the high mantelpiece; his frock-coat hung to the level of the oven-knob. She had one hand on the white deal table. Between them a tortoiseshell cat purred on the red-tiled floor.

‘Ye’re doing a verra serious thing, Miss Beechinor. As Mr. Beechinor’s solicitor, I should just like to be acquaint with the real reasons for this conduct.’

‘I’ve told you.’ She had a slightly quizzical look.

‘Now, as to Mark,’ the lawyer continued blandly, ‘Mr. Beechinor explained the whole circumstances to me. Mark as good as defied his brother.’

‘That’s nothing to do with it.’

‘By the way, it appears that Mark is practically engaged to be married. May I ask if the lady is yeself?’

She hesitated.

‘If so,’ he proceeded, ‘I may tell ye informally that I admire the pluck of ye. But, nevertheless, that will has got to be executed.’

‘The young lady is a Miss Mellor of Hanbridge.’

‘I’m going to fetch my clerk,’ he said shortly. ‘I can see ye’re an obstinate and unfathomable woman. I’ll be back in half an hour.’

When he had departed she bolted the front-door top and bottom, and went upstairs to the dying man.

Nearly an hour elapsed before she heard a knock. Mr. Baines had had to arouse his clerk from sleep. Instead of going down to the front-door, Mary threw up the bedroom window and looked out. It was a mild but starless night. Trafalgar Road was silent save for the steam-car, which, with its load of revellers returning from Hanbridge–that centre of gaiety–slipped rumbling down the hill towards Bursley.

‘What do you want–disturbing a respectable house at this time of night?’ she called in a loud whisper when the car had passed. ‘The door’s bolted, and I can’t come down. You must come in the morning.’

‘Miss Beechinor, ye will let us in–I charge ye.’

‘It’s useless, Mr. Baines.’

‘I’ll break the door down. I’m a strong man, and a determined. Ye are carrying things too far.’

In another moment the two men heard the creak of the bolts. Mary stood before them, vaguely discernible, but a forbidding figure.

‘If you must–come upstairs,’ she said coldly.

‘Stay here in the passage, Arthur,’ said Mr. Baines; ‘I’ll call ye when I want ye;’ and he followed Mary up the stairs.

Edward Beechinor lay on his back, and his sunken eyes stared glassily at the ceiling. The skin of his emaciated face, stretched tightly over the protruding bones, had lost all its crimson, and was green, white, yellow. The mouth was wide open. His drawn features wore a terribly sardonic look–a purely physical effect of the disease; but it seemed to the two spectators that this mean and disappointed slave of a miserly habit had by one superb imaginative effort realized the full vanity of all human wishes and pretensions.

‘Ye can go; I shan’t want ye,’ said Mr. Baines, returning to the clerk.

The lawyer never spoke of that night’s business. Why should he? To what end? Mark Beechinor, under the old will, inherited the seven hundred pounds and the house. Miss Mellor of Hanbridge is still Miss Mellor, her hand not having been formally sought. But Mark, secretary of the Labour Church, is married. Miss Mellor, with a quite pardonable air of tolerant superiority, refers to his wife as ‘a strange, timid little creature–she couldn’t say Bo to a goose.’