"I did n't want it," replied Shelton, unaccountably ashamed.

Mr. Paramor's lips quivered; he drew the draft closer, took up a
blue pencil, and, squeezing Shelton's arm, began to read. The latter,
following his uncle's rapid exposition of the clauses, was relieved when
he paused suddenly.

"If you die and she marries again," said Mr. Paramor, "she forfeits her
life interest--see?"

"Oh!" said Shelton; "wait a minute, Uncle Ted."

Mr. Paramor waited, biting his pencil; a smile flickered on his mouth,
and was decorously subdued. It was Shelton's turn to walk about.

"If she marries again," he repeated to himself.

Mr. Paramor was a keen fisherman; he watched his nephew as he might have
watched a fish he had just landed.

"It's very usual," he remarked.

Shelton took another turn.

"She forfeits," thought he; "exactly."

When he was dead, he would have no other way of seeing that she
continued to belong to him. Exactly!

Mr. Paramor's haunting eyes were fastened on his nephew's face.