that. You're entitled to nothing but the three amounts of ten thousand
each. Of course, thirty thousand is thirty thousand--it means, at five
per cent., fifteen hundred a year--if you could get five per cent.
safely. But--I should say your son and daughter are getting a few
thousand a year each, aren't they, Mrs. Mallathorpe? It would be a nice
come-down! Five hundred a year apiece--at the outside. A small house
instead of Normandale Grange. Genteel poverty--comparatively
speaking--instead of riches. That is--if I hand over the will to
Charlesworth & Wyatt."

Mrs. Mallathorpe slowly turned her eyes on Pratt. And Pratt suddenly
felt a little afraid--there was anger in those eyes; anger of a curious
sort. It might be against fate--against circumstance: it might not--why
should it?--be against him personally, but it was there, and it was
malign and almost evil, and it made him uncomfortable.

"Where is the will!" she asked.

"Safe! In my keeping," answered Pratt.

She looked him all over--surmisingly.

"You'll sell it to me?" she suggested. "You'll hand it over--and let me
burn it--destroy it?"

"No!" answered Pratt. "I shall not!"

He saw that his answer produced personal anger at last. Mrs. Mallathorpe
gave him a look which would have warned a much less observant man than
Pratt. But he gave her back a look that was just as resolute.