Turlington did not attempt to answer the question.  “Am I interested,” he asked, “in what you have been saying to Mr. Dicas?”

“You shall judge for yourself,” answered Sir Joseph, mysteriously; “I have been giving Mr. Dicas his instructions for making my Will.  I wish the Will and the Marriage-Settlement to be executed at the same time.  Read the instructions, Mr. Dicas.”

Sir Joseph’s contemplated Will proved to have two merits—­it was simple and it was short.  Excepting one or two trifling legacies to distant relatives, he had no one to think of (Miss Lavinia being already provided for) but his daughter and the children who might be born of her marriage.  In its various provisions, made with these two main objects in view, the Will followed the precedents established in such cases.  It differed in no important respect from the tens of thousands of other wills made under similar circumstances.  Sir Joseph’s motive in claiming special attention for it still remained unexplained, when Mr. Dicas reached the clause devoted to the appointment of executors and trustees; and announced that this portion of the document was left in blank.

“Sir Joseph Graybrooke, are you prepared to name the persons whom you appoint?” asked the lawyer.

Sir Joseph rose, apparently for the purpose of giving special importance to the terms in which he answered his lawyer’s question.

“I appoint,” he said, “as sole executor and trustee—­Richard Turlington.”

It was no easy matter to astonish Mr. Dicas.  Sir Joseph’s reply absolutely confounded him.  He looked across the table at his client and delivered himself on this special occasion of as many as three words.

“Are you mad?” he asked.

Sir Joseph’s healthy complexion slightly reddened.  “I never was in more complete possession of myself, Mr. Dicas, than at this moment.”

Mr. Dicas was not to be silenced in that way.

“Are you aware of what you do,” persisted the lawyer, “if you appoint Mr. Turlington as sole executor and trustee?  You put it in the power of your daughter’s husband, sir, to make away with every farthing of your money after your death.”

Turlington had hitherto listened with an appearance of interest in the proceedings, which he assumed as an act of politeness.  To his view, the future was limited to the date at which Bulpit Brothers had a right to claim the repayment of their loan.  The Will was a matter of no earthly importance to him, by comparison with the infinitely superior interest of the Marriage.  It was only when the lawyer’s brutally plain language forced his attention to it that the question of his pecuniary interest in his father-in-law’s death assumed its fit position in his mind.

His color rose; and he too showed that he was offended by what Mr. Dicas had just said.