and begged Val's forgiveness. But what was still more satisfactory was
his message to Christian and her children. He asked pardon for his
unkindness in deserting them; they would soon see, he said, how dear
they were to him.

"He has made his will in their favor," was Val's summing up of the
matter. "He was just explaining that fact when he had another bad
attack quite suddenly, and I came away, after summoning the nurse."

That conversation, short as it was, proved to be the last in which the
dying man was to take part with my brother. He passed away a short
time after, having never recovered consciousness. The Catholic nurse
had sent for Val a few minutes after he had rejoined me. We both went
to the sick-room, and my brother had said the prayers for the dying,
followed by those for the repose of his soul when Gowan ceased to
breathe.

The funeral was over and we had been back in Ardmuirland for some weeks
before any tidings arrived about the dead man's affairs. All
arrangements as to payment of expenses and the like were carried out by
a Glasgow lawyer, who had been empowered to act for Gowan's agent in
America. The most thorough search had failed to discover anything in
the shape of a will among the dead man's effects in Glasgow, and it was
supposed to be in the keeping of the American lawyer. When tidings did
arrive, they were such as to fill us with consternation. The will in
the lawyer's possession was dated more than two years before, after
Gowan's return to America from Ardmuirland. Its terms, moreover, by no
means tallied with the information given by the dying man to Val; for
in it there was no mention of the Logans at all, everything being
bequeathed to the Freemason's lodge of which Gowan had been a member.