will teach you a lesson.  You need it more than you need my money.  But you must be married within a year of my death.  And if the one that marries cares to give five thousand pounds or so to the other, of course there’s nothing to prevent him.  This is just a hint.  And if you don’t either of you marry Annie within a year, then I just leave everything I have to Miss Annie Emery (spinster), stationer and fancy-goods dealer, Duck Bank, Bursley.  She deserves something for her disappointment, and she shall have it.  Mr Liversage, solicitor, must kindly be my executor.  And I commit my soul to God, hoping for a blessed resurrection. 20th January, 1896.  Signed Mary Ann Bott, widow.”  As I told you, the witnessing is in order,’ Liversage finished.

‘Give it here,’ said John shortly, and scanned the sheet of paper.

And Robert actually walked round the table and looked over his brother’s shoulder—­ample proof that he was terrifically moved.

‘And do you mean to tell me that a will like that is good in law?’ exclaimed John.

‘Of course it’s good in law!’ Liversage replied.  ’Legal phraseology is a useful thing, and it often saves trouble in the end; but it ain’t indispensable, you know.’

‘Humph!’ was Robert’s comment as he resumed his seat and relighted his pipe.

All three men were nervous.  Each was afraid to speak, afraid even to meet the eyes of the other two.  An unmajestic silence followed.

‘Well, I’ll be off, I think,’ Liversage remarked at length with difficulty.

He rose.

‘I say,’ Robert stopped him.  ’Better not say anything about this to Miss—­to Annie, eh?’

‘I will say nothing,’ agreed Liversage (infamously and unprofessionally concealing the fact that he had already said something).

And he departed.

The brothers sat in flustered meditation over the past and the future.

Ten years before, Annie Emery had been an orphan of twenty-three, bravely starting in business for herself amid the plaudits of the admiring town; and John had fallen in love with her courage and her sense and her feminine charm.  But alas, as Ovid points out, how difficult it is for a woman to please only one man!  Robert also had fallen in love with Annie.  Each brother had accused the other of underhand and unbrotherly practices in the pursuit of Annie.  Each was profoundly hurt by the accusations, and each, in the immense fatuity of his pride, had privately sworn to prove his innocence by having nothing more to do with Annie.  Such is life!  Such is man!  Such is the terrible egoism of man!  And thus it was that, for the sake of wounded pride, John and Robert not only did not speak to one another for ten years, but they spoilt at least one of their lives; and they behaved ignobly to Annie, who would certainly have married either one or the other of them.

At two o’clock in the morning John pulled a coin out of his pocket and made the gesture of tossing.