CHAPTER XXXII It was not a confession; it was a statement. In the next distressing hour, during which Robert Ferguson succeeded in drawing the facts from Blair's sister, there was not the slightest consciousness of wrong-doing. Over and over, with soft stubbornness, she asserted her conviction: "It was right to do it. Mamma wanted to give the money to Blair. But she couldn't write her name. So I wrote it for her. It was right to do it."

"Nannie," her old friend said, in despair, "don't you know what the law calls it, when one person imitates another person's handwriting for such a purpose."

"You can call it anything you want to," she said, passionately. "I call it carrying out Mamma's wishes. And I would do it over again this minute."

Robert Ferguson was speechless with dismay. To find rigidity in this meek mind, was as if, through layers of velvet, through fold on fold of yielding dullness that gave at the slightest touch, he had suddenly, at some deeper pressure, felt, under the velvet, granite!

"It was right," Nannie said, fiercely, trembling all over, "it was right, because it was necessary. Oh, what do your laws amount to, when it comes to dying? When it comes to a time like that! She was dying—you don't seem to understand—Mamma was dying! And she wanted Blair to have that money; and just because she hadn't the strength to write her name, you would let her wish fail. Of course I wrote it for her! Yes; I know what you call it. But what do I care what it is called, if I carried out her wish and gave Blair the money she wanted him to have? Now he has got it, and nobody can take it away from him."

"My dear child, if he kept it, it would be stealing."

"You can't steal from your mother," Nannie said; "Mamma would be the first one to say so!"

Mr. Ferguson looked over at his niece and shook his head; how were they to make her understand? "He can't keep it, Nannie. When he understands that it isn't his, he will simply give it back to the estate, and then it will come to you."

"To me?" she said, astounded. And he explained that she was her stepmother's residuary legatee. She looked blank, and he told her the meaning of the term.

"The estate is going to meet the bequests with a fair balance; and as that balance will come to you, this money you gave to Blair will be yours, too."

She had been standing, with Elizabeth's pitying arms about her; but at the shock of his explanation she seemed to collapse. She sank down in a chair, panting. "It wasn't necessary! I could have just given it to him."

Later, when Robert Ferguson was walking home with his niece, he, too, said, grimly: "No; it 'wasn't necessary,' as she says, poor child! She could have given it to him; just as she will give it to him, now. Well, well, to think of that mouse, Nannie, upsetting the lion's plans!"

Elizabeth was silent.

"What I can't understand," he ruminated, "is how that signature could pass at the bank; a girl like Nannie able to copy a signature so that a bank wouldn't detect it!"

"She has always copied Mrs. Maitland's writing," Elizabeth said; "that last week Mrs. Maitland said she could not tell the difference herself."

Robert Ferguson looked perfectly incredulous. "It's astounding!" he said; "and it would be impossible,—if it hadn't happened. Well, come along home with me, Elizabeth. I think I'd better tell you just how the matter stands, so that you can explain it to Blair. I don't care to see him myself—if I can help it. But in the matter of transferring the money to the estate, we must keep Nannie's name out of it, and I want you to tell him how he and I must patch it up."

"When he returns it, I suppose the executors will give it at once to
David?" she said.

"Of course not. It will belong to the estate. Women have no financial moral sense!"

"Oh!" Elizabeth said; and pondered.

Just as he was pulling out his latch-key to open his front door, she spoke again: "If Nannie gives it back to him, Blair will have to send it to David, won't he?"

"I can't go into Mr. Blair Maitland's ideals of honor," her uncle said, dryly. "Legally, if Nannie chooses to make him a gift, he has a right to keep it."

She made no reply. She sat down at the library table opposite him, and listened without comment to the information which he desired her to convey to Blair. But long before she got back to the hotel, Blair had had the information.

Nannie, left to herself after that distressing interview, sat in the dusty desolation of Mrs. Maitland's room, her face hidden in her hands. She needn't have done it. That was her first clear thought. The strain of that dreadful hour alone in the dining-room, with Death behind the locked door, had been unnecessary! As she realized how unnecessary, she felt a resentment that was almost anger at such a waste of pain. Then into the resentment crept a little fright. Mr. Ferguson's words about wrong-doing began to have meaning. "Of course it was against the law," she told herself, "but it was not wrong,—there is a difference." It was incredible to her that Mr. Ferguson did not see the difference. "Mamma wouldn't have let him speak so to me, if she'd been here," she thought, and her lip trembled; "oh, I wish she hadn't died," she said; and cried softly for a minute or two. Then it occurred to her that she had better go to the River House and tell her brother the whole story. "If Mr. Ferguson is angry about it perhaps Blair had better pay the money back right off; of course I'll give it to him the minute it comes to me; but he will know what to do now."

She ran up-stairs to her own room, and began to dress to go out, but she was so nervous that her fingers were all thumbs; "I don't want Elizabeth to tell him," she said to herself; and tried to hurry, dropping her hat-pin and mislaying her gloves; "oh, where is my veil!" she said, frantically.

She was just leaving her room when she heard Blair's voice in the lower hall: "Nancy! Where are you?"

"I'm coming," she called back; and came running down-stairs. "Oh, Blair dear," she said, "I want to see you so much!" By that time she was on the verge of tears, and the flush of worry in her cheeks made her so pretty that her brother looked at her appreciatively.

"Black is mighty becoming to you, Nancy. Nannie dear, I have something to tell you. Come into the parlor!" His voice, as he put his arm around her and drew her into the room, had a ring in it which, in spite of her preoccupation, caught her attention. "Sit down!" he commanded; and then, standing in front of her, his handsome face alert, he told her that he was not going to contest his mother's will. "I pitched up a penny," he said, gaily; "I was sick and tired of the uncertainty. 'Heads, I fight; tails, I cave.' It came down tails," he said, with a half-sheepish laugh. "Well, it will please Elizabeth if I don't fight. I'll go into business. I can get a partnership in Haines's office. He is a stockbroker, you know."

Nannie's attention flagged; in the nature of things she could not understand how important this decision was, so she was not disturbed that it should have been made by the flip of a penny. Blair was apt to rely upon chance to make up his mind for him, and in regard to the will, heads or tails was as good a chance as any. In her own preoccupation, she had not realized that he had reached the reluctant conviction that in any effort to break the will, the legal odds would be against him. But if she had realized it she would have known that the probable hopelessness of litigation would not have helped him much in reaching a decision, so the penny judgment would not have surprised her. Blair, as he told her about it, was in great spirits. He had been entirely sincere in his reluctance to take any step which might indicate contempt for his mother's late (if adequate) repentance; so now, though a little rueful about the money, he was distinctly relieved that his taste was not going to be sentimentally offended. He meant to live on what his mother had given him until he made a fortune for himself. For he was going to make a fortune! He was going to stand on his own legs. He was going to buy Elizabeth's interest in him and his affairs, buy even her admiration by making this sacrifice of not fighting for his rights! He was full of the fervor of it all as he stood there telling his sister of his decision. When he had finished, he waited for her outburst of approval.

But she only nodded nervously; "Blair, Mr. Ferguson says you've got to give back that money; Mamma's check, you know?"

"What?" Blair said; he was standing by the piano, and as he spoke he struck a crashing octave; "what on earth do you mean?"

"Well, he—I—" It had not occurred to Nannie that it would be difficult to tell Blair, but suddenly it seemed impossible. "You see, Mamma didn't exactly—sign the check."

"What are you talking about?" Blair said, suddenly attentive.

"She wanted you to have the money," Nannie began, faintly.

"Of course she did; but what do you mean about not signing the check 'exactly'?" In his bewilderment, which was not yet alarm, he put his arm around her, laughing: "Nancy, what is all this stuff?"

"I did for her," Nannie said.

"Did what?"

"Signed it."

"Nannie, I don't understand you; do you mean that mother made you indorse that certificate? Nancy, do try to be clear!" He was uneasy now; perhaps some ridiculous legal complication had arisen. "Some of their everlasting red tape! Fortunately, I've got the money all right," he said to himself, dryly.

"She wrote the first part of it," Nannie began, stammering with the difficulty of explaining what had seemed so simple; "but she hadn't the strength to sign her name, so I—did it for her."

Her brother looked at her aghast. "Did she tell you to?"

"No; she . . . was dead."

"Good God!" he said. The shock of it made him feel faint. He sat down, too dumfounded for speech.

"I had to, you see," Nannie explained, breathlessly; she was very much frightened, far more frightened than when she had told Mr. Ferguson. "I had to, because—because Mamma couldn't. She was … not alive."

Blair suddenly put his hands over his face. "You forged mother's name!"
His consternation was like a blow; she cringed away from it: "No;
I—just wrote it."

"Nannie!"

"Somebody had to," she insisted, faintly.

Blair sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the room. "This is awful. I haven't a cent!"

"Oh," she said, with a gasp, "as far as that goes it doesn't make any difference, except about time. Mr. Ferguson said it didn't make any difference. I'll give it all back to you as soon as I get it. Only you'll have to give it back first."

"Nannie," he said, "for Heaven's sake, tell me straight, the whole thing."

She told him as well as she could; speaking with that minute elaboration of the unimportant so characteristic of minds like hers and so maddening to the listener. Blair, in a fury of anxiety, tried not to interrupt, but when she reached Mr. Ferguson's assertion that the certificate had been meant for David Richie, the worried color suddenly dropped out of his face.

"For—him? Nannie!"

"No, oh no! It wasn't for David, except just at first—before—not when—" She was perfectly incoherent, "Let me tell you," she besought him.

"If I thought she had meant it for him, I would send it to him before night! Tell me everything," he said, passionately.

"I'm trying to," Nannie stammered, "but you—you keep interrupting me. I'll tell you how it was, if you'll just let me, and not keep interrupting. Perhaps she did plan to give it to David. Mr. Ferguson said she planned to more than two years ago. And even when she was sick Mr. Ferguson thinks she still meant to."

"I'll fight that damned will to my last breath!" he burst out. Following the recoil of disgust at the idea of taking anything—"anything else"—that belonged to David Richie, came the shock of feeling that he had been tricked into the sentimentality of forgiveness. "I'll break that will if I take it through every court in the land!"

"But Blair! Mamma didn't mean it for him at the last. Don't you see? Oh, Blair, listen! Don't be so—terrible; you frighten me," Nannie said, squeezing her hands hard together in the effort to keep from crying. "Listen: she told me on Wednesday, the day before she died, that she wanted to give you a present. She said, 'I must give him a check.' You see, she was beginning to realize how wrong her will was; but of course she didn't know she was going to die or she would have changed it."

"That doesn't follow," Blair said.

"Then came the last day"—Nannie could not keep the tears back any longer; "the last day; but it was too late to do anything about the will. Why, she could hardly speak, it was so near the—the end. And then all of a sudden she remembered that certificate. And she opened her eyes and looked at me with such relief, as if she said to herself, 'I can give him that!' And she told me to bring it to her. And she kept saying, 'Blair—Blair—Blair.' And oh, it was pitiful to see her hurry so to write your name! And then she wrote it; but before she could sign her name, her hand sort of—fell. And she tried so hard to raise it so she could sign it; but she couldn't. And she kept muttering that she had written it 'many times, many times'; I couldn't just hear what she said; she sort of—mumbled, you know. Oh, it was dreadful!"

"And then?" Blair said, breathlessly. Nannie was speechless.

"Then?" he insisted, trembling.

"Then . . . she died," Nannie whispered.

"But the signature! The signature! How—"

"In the night, I—" She stopped; terror spread over her face as wind spreads over a pool. "In the night, at three o'clock, I came down-stairs and—" She stopped, panting for breath. He put his arm around her soothingly.

"Try and tell me, dear. I didn't mean to be savage." His face had relaxed. Of course it was dreadful, this thing Nannie had done; but it was not so dreadful as the thought that he had taken money intended for David Richie. When he had quieted her, and she was able to speak again, she told him just what she had done there in the dining-room at three o'clock in the morning.

"But didn't you know it was wrong?" he said; "that it was a criminal offense!" He could not keep the dismay out of his voice.

"I did it for Mamma's sake and yours," she said, quailing.

"Well," he said, and in his relief at knowing that he need not think of David Richie, he was almost gay—"well, you mustn't tell any one else your motive for committing a—" Nannie suddenly burst out crying. "Mamma wouldn't say that to me," she said, "Mamma was never cross to me in her whole life! But you and Mr. Ferguson—" she could not go on, for tears. He was instantly contrite and tender; but even as he tried to comfort her, he frowned; of course in the end he would suffer no loss, but the immediate situation was delicate and troublesome. "I'll have to go and see Mr. Ferguson, I suppose," he said. "You mustn't speak of it to any one, dear; things really might get serious, if anybody but Mr. Ferguson knew about it. Don't tell a soul; promise me?"

She promised, and Blair left her very soberly. The matter of the money was comparatively unimportant; it was his, subject only to the formality of its transfer to the estate. But that David Richie should have been connected even indirectly with his personal affairs was exquisitely offensive to him—and Elizabeth knew about it! "She's probably sitting there by the window, looking like that robin, and thinking about him," he said to himself angrily, as he hurried back to the River House. There seemed to be no escape from David Richie. "I feel like a dog with a dead hen hanging round his neck," he said to himself, in grimly humorous disgust; "I can't get away from him!"

He found his wife in their parlor at the hotel, but she was not in that listless attitude that he had grown to expect,—huddled in a chair, her chin in her hand, her eyes watching the slow roll of the river. Instead she was alert.

"Blair!" she said, almost before he had closed the door behind him; "I have something to tell you."

"I know about it," he said, gravely; "I have seen Nannie."

Elizabeth looked at him in silence.

"Would you have supposed that Nannie, Nannie, of all people! would have had the courage to do such a thing?" he said, nervously; it occurred to him that if he could keep the conversation on Nannie's act, perhaps that—that name could be avoided. "Think of the mere courage of it, to say nothing of its criminality."

"She didn't know she was doing wrong."

"No; of course not. But it's a mighty unpleasant matter."

"Uncle says it can be arranged so that her name needn't come into it."

"Of course," he agreed.

Elizabeth did not speak, but the look in her eyes was a demand.

"It's going to be rather tough for us, to wait until she hands it over to me," Blair said.

"To you?"

The moment had come! He came and knelt beside her, and kissed her; she did not repulse him. She continued to look at him steadily. Then very gently, she said, "And when Nannie gives it to you, what will you do with it?"

Blair drew in his breath as if bracing himself for a struggle. Then he got on his feet, pulled up one of the big, plush-covered arm-chairs, took out his cigarette-case, and struck a match. His hand shook. "Do with it? Why, invest it. I am going into business, Elizabeth. I decided to this morning. If you would care to know why I have given up the idea of contesting the will, I'll tell you. I don't want to bore you," he ended, wistfully. Apparently she did not hear him.

"Did Nannie tell you that that money was meant for a hospital?"

Blair sat up straight, and the match, burning slowly, scorched his fingers. He threw it down with an exclamation; his face was red with his effort to speak quietly. "She told me of your uncle's misunderstanding of the situation. There is no possible doubt that my mother meant the money for me. If I thought otherwise—"

"If you will talk to Uncle Robert, you will think otherwise."

"Of course I'll go and see Mr. Ferguson; I shall have to, to arrange about the transfer of the money to the estate, so that it can come back to me through the legitimate channel of a gift from Nannie; in other words, she will carry out my mother's purpose legally, instead—poor old Nannie! of carrying it out criminally, as she tried to do. But I won't go to your uncle to discuss my mother's purpose, Elizabeth. I am perfectly satisfied that she meant to give me that money."

She was silent.

"Of course," he went on, "I will hear what Mr. Ferguson has to say about this idea of his—and yours, too, apparently," he ended, bitterly.

"Yes," she said, "and mine." The words seemed to tingle as she spoke them.

"Oh, Elizabeth!" he cried, "aren't you ever going to care for me? You actually think me capable of keeping money intended for—some one else!"

His indignation was too honest to be ignored. "I suppose that you believe it is yours," she said with an effort; "but you believe it because you don't know the facts. When you see Uncle Robert, you will not believe it." And with that meager acknowledgment of his honesty he had to be content.

They did not speak of it again during that long dull Sunday afternoon, but each knew that the other thought of nothing else. The red September sun was sinking into a smoky haze on the other side of the river, when Blair suddenly took up his hat and went out. It had occurred to him that if he could correct Robert Ferguson's misapprehension, Elizabeth would correct hers. He would not wait for business hours to clear himself in her eyes; he would go and see her uncle at once. It was dusk when he pushed into Mr. Ferguson's library, almost in advance of the servant who announced him: "Mr. Ferguson!" he said peremptorily; "Nannie has told me. And Elizabeth gave me your message. I have come to say that the transfer shall be made at once. My one wish is that Nannie's name may not be connected with it in any possible way—of course she is as innocent as a child."

"It can be arranged easily enough," the older man said; he did not rise from his desk, or offer his hand.

"But," Blair burst out, "what I came especially to say was that I hear you are under the impression that my mother did not, at the end, mean me to have that money?"

"I am under that impression. But," Robert Ferguson added, contemptuously, "you need not be too upset. Nannie will give it back to you."

"I am not in the least upset!" Blair retorted; "but whether I'm upset or not, is not the question. The question is, did my mother change her mind about her will, and try to make up for it in this way? I believe, from all that I know now, that she did. But I have come to ask you whether there is anything that I don't know; anything Nannie hasn't told me, or that she doesn't understand, which leads you to feel as you do?"

"You had better sit down."

"If it was just Nannie's idea, I will break the will!"

"You had better sit down," Mr. Ferguson repeated, coldly, "and I'll tell you the whole business."

Blair sat down; his hat, which he had forgotten to take off, was on the back of his head; he leaned forward, his fingers white on a cane swinging between his knees; he did not look at Elizabeth's uncle, but his eyes showed that he did not lose a word he said. At the end of the statement—brief, fair, spoken without passion or apparent prejudice—the tension relaxed and his face cleared; he drew a great breath of relief.

"It seems to me," Robert Ferguson ended, "that there can be no doubt of your mother's intention."

"I agree with you," Blair said, triumphantly, "there is no possible doubt! She called for the certificate and wrote my name on it. What more do you want than that to prove her intention?"

"You have a right to your opinion," Mr. Ferguson said, "and I have a right to mine. I cannot see that either opinion affects the situation. You will, as a matter of common honesty, return this money to the estate. What Nannie will ultimately do with it, is not my affair. It is between you and her. I can't see that we need discuss the matter further." He took up his pen with a gesture of dismissal.

Blair's face reddened as if it had been slapped, but he did not rise. "I want you to know, sir, that while my sister's act is, of course, entirely indefensible, and I shall immediately return the money which she tried to secure for me, I shall, nevertheless, allow her to give it back to me, because it is my conviction that, by my dying mother's wish, it belongs to me; not to—to any one else."

"Your convictions have always served your wishes. I will bid you good-evening." For an instant Blair hesitated; then, still scarlet with anger, took his departure. Mr. Ferguson's belief that he was capable of keeping money intended for—for any one else, was an insult; "an abominable insult!" he told himself. And it was Elizabeth's belief, too! He drew in his breath in a groan. "She thinks I am dishonorable," he said. Well, certainly that sneak, Richie, would feel he was avenged if he could know how cruel she was; "damn him," Blair said, softly.

He thought to himself that he could not go back and tell Elizabeth what her uncle had said; he could not repeat the insult! Some time, when he was calmer, he would tell her quietly that he had been wronged, that she herself had wronged him. But just now he could not talk to her; he was too angry and too miserable.

So, walking slowly in the foggy dusk that was pungent with the smoke of bonfires on the flats, he suddenly wheeled about and went in the other direction. "I'll go and have supper with Nannie," he thought; "I'm afraid she is dreadfully worried and unhappy,—and all on my account, dear old Nancy!"