“If you’ll step up here, and bring one of your men with you, I shall be obliged, Mr. Carley,” the attorney said, looking over the banisters; “I want you to witness your son-in-law’s will.”  Mr. Carley’s spirits rose a little at this.  He was not much versed in the ways of lawyers, and had a notion that Mr. Pivott would read the will to him, perhaps, before he signed it.  It flashed upon him presently that a legatee could not benefit by a will which he had witnessed.  It was obvious, therefore, that Stephen did not mean him to have anything.  Well, he had scarcely expected anything.  If his daughter inherited all, it would be pretty much the same thing; she would act generously of course.

He went into the kitchen, where the head man, who had been retained on the premises to act as special messenger in this time of need, was sitting in the chimney-corner smoking a comfortable pipe after his walk to and from Malsham.

“You’re wanted upstairs a minute, Joe,” he said; and the two went clumping up the wide old oaken staircase.

The witnessing of the will was a very brief business.  Mr. Pivott did not offer to throw any light upon its contents, nor was the bailiff, sharpsighted as he might be, able to seize upon so much as one paragraph or line of the document during the process of attaching his signature thereto.

When the ceremony was concluded, Stephen Whitelaw sank back upon his pillow with an air of satisfaction.

“I don’t think I could have done any better,” he murmured.

“It’s a hard thing for a man of my age to leave everything behind him; but I don’t see that I could have done better.”

“You have done that, my dear sir, which might afford comfort to any death-bed,” said the lawyer solemnly.

He folded the will, and put it into his pocket.

“Our friend desires me to take charge of this document,” he said to William Carley.  “You will have no reason to complain, on your daughter’s account, when you become familiar with its contents.  She has been fairly treated—­I may say very fairly treated.”

The bailiff did not much relish the tone of this assurance.  Fair treatment might mean very little.

“I hope she has been well treated,” he answered in a surly manner.  “She’s been a good wife to Stephen Whitelaw, and would continue so to be if he was to live twenty years longer.  When a pretty young woman marries a man twice her age, she’s a right to expect handsome treatment, Mr. Pivott.  It can’t be too handsome for justice, in my opinion.”

The solicitor gave a little gentle sigh.

“As an interested party, Mr. Carley,” he said, “your opinion is not as valuable as it might be under other circumstances.  However, I don’t think your daughter will complain, and I am sure the world will applaud what our poor friend has done—­of his own accord, mind, Mr. Carley, wholly and solely of his own spontaneous desire.  It is a thing that I should only have been too proud to suggest; but the responsibility of such a suggestion is one which I could never have taken upon myself.  It would have been out of my province, indeed.  You will be kind enough to remember this by-and-by, my dear sir.”