John was silent.

“For,” continued Valentine, “no one feels more keenly than she does that it is not charity, not a good work, in a man to leave from his own family what he does not want and can no longer use, thinking that it is just as acceptable to God as if he had given it in his lifetime, when he liked it, enjoyed it—­when, in short, it was his own.”

“You alienate it with no such thoughts.”

“Oh, no, God forbid!  But she will think I must have done.  There is hardly any one living who cares for me as much as she does.  It would be very distressing for me to die, knowing she would think me a fanatic, or a fellow with no affection.”

“I was afraid you would think of this.”

“You will say something to her, John.  All will depend on you.  She will be so hurt, so astonished that I should have done such a thing that she will never open her lips about it to you.  I know her, and, and——­”

John seemed to feel this appeal very keenly:  he could not look Valentine in the face.  “I acknowledge,” he muttered, “that this is hard.”

“But you will say something to her?”

“If you can think of anything in the world that would not be better left unsaid—­if you can think of any one thing that for the sake of her love and sorrow, and my peace and your own memory, should not be left to the silence you deprecate—­then tell me what it is.”

Neither spoke for some time after that.  At last the poor young fellow said, with something like a sob, “Then you meant that when you mentioned Emily?”

“Yes, I did.  I felt how hard it was.  I feel it much more now I know you are going to divest yourself of any profit during your life.”  He had been looking at Valentine anxiously and intently.  The large eyes, too bright for health; the sharp, finely-cut features and pallid forehead.  Suddenly turning, he caught sight of himself in the glass, and stood arrested by a momentary surprise.  Very little accustomed to consider his own appearance, for he had but a small share of personal vanity, he was all the more astonished thus to observe the contrast.  The fine hues of health, the clear calm of the eyes, the wide shoulders and grand manly frame.  This sudden irresistible consciousness of what a world of life and strength there was in him, had just the opposite effect of what seemed the natural one.  “Perhaps he may survive us both,” he thought.  “Who can tell?”

“But it seems to me,” he continued aloud, “that we have talked as if it was more than likely that Emily and I were to have some knowledge and consciousness of this will of yours; and yet the vicissitudes of life and the surprises of death ought to place them almost outside our thoughts of probability, I hope to see you some day as grey-headed as your father was. I hope it indeed! it may well be the case, and I not be here to see.”

Valentine, always hopeful, was very much cheered by this speech.  He did not know how John’s thought had been turned in this direction by a strong sense of that very improbability which he wanted to leave out of the question.