Then Bartley, clinging by mere desperate instinct to money he could not
hope to keep, flew to her, drove her out by a frenzied movement of both
hands, though he did not touch her, and spread-eagled himself before the
door, with his face and dilating eyes turned toward Colonel Clifford.

The Colonel turned and stepped toward him with the document he had
selected at the table. Bartley went to meet him.

The Colonel gave it to him, and said it was a copy of the will.

Bartley took it, and Colonel Clifford expelled his last sentences.

"We have shaken hands. Let us forget our past quarrels, and respect the
wishes of the dead."

With that he turned sharply on both heels, and faced the door of the
little office before he moved; then marched out in about seven steps, as
he had marched in, and never looked behind him for two hundred miles.

The moment he was out of sight, Bartley, with his wife's will in his hand
and ice at his heart, went to his child's room. The nurse met him,
crying, and said, "A change"--mild but fatal words that from a nurse's
lips end hope.

He came to the bedside just in time to see the breath hovering on his
child's lips, and then move them as the summer air stirs a leaf.

Soon all was still, and the rich man's child was clay.