William Carley had shown himself very civil and obliging in providing for the lawyer’s comfort, and having done so, now took up his stand by the fire-place, evidently intending to remain as a spectator of the business.  But an uneasy glance which the patient cast from time to time in the direction of his father-in-law convinced Mr. Pivott that he wanted that gentleman to be got rid of before business began.

“I think, Mr. Carley, it would be as well for our poor friend and I to be alone,” he said in his most courteous accents.

“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed the bailiff contemptuously.  “It isn’t likely that Stephen can have any secrets from his wife’s father.  I’m in nobody’s way, I’m sure, and I’m not going to put my spoke in the wheel, let him leave his money how he may.”

“Very likely not, my dear sir.  Indeed, I am sure you would respect our poor friend’s wishes, even if they were to take a form unpleasing to yourself, which is far from likely.  But still it may be as well for Mr. Whitelaw and myself to be alone.  In cases of this kind the patient is apt to be nervous, and the business is done more expeditiously if there is no third party present.  So, my dear Mr. Carley, if you have no objection——­”

“Steph,” said the bailiff abruptly, “do you want me out of the room?  Say the word, if you do.”

The patient writhed, hesitated, and then replied with some confusion,—­

“If it’s all the same to you, William Carley, I think I’d sooner be alone with Mr. Pivott.”

And here the polite attorney, having opened the door with his own hands, bowed the bailiff out; and, to his extreme mortification, William Carley found himself on the outside of his son-in-law’s room, before he had time to make any farther remonstrance.

He went downstairs, and paced the wainscoted parlour in a very savage frame of mind.

“There’s some kind of devil’s work hatching up there,” he muttered to himself.  “Why should he want me out of the room?  He wouldn’t, if he was going to leave all his money to Ellen, as he ought to leave it.  Who else is there to get it?  Not that old mother Tadman, surely.  She’s an artful old harridan; and if my girl had not been a fool, she’d have got rid of her out of hand when she married.  Sure to goodness she can never stand between Stephen and his wife.  And who else is there?  No one that I know of; no one.  Stephen wouldn’t have kept any secret all these years from the folks he’s lived amongst.  It isn’t likely.  He must leave it all to his wife, except a hundred or so, perhaps, to mother Tadman; and it was nothing but his natural closeness that made him want me out of the way.”

And at this stage of his reflections, Mr. Carley opened a cupboard near the fire-place and brought therefrom a case-bottle, from the contents of which he found farther solace.  It was about half-an-hour after this that he was summoned by a call from the lawyer, who was standing on the broad landing-place at the top of the stairs with a candle in his hand, when the bailiff emerged from the parlour.