"Do not think
that I anticipate so sad a close to our engagement. But it is the duty
of a man to look sharply out for every danger in the pathway of the
woman he is bound to protect. I am a lawyer, remember, Paulina, and I
contemplate the future with the eye of a lawyer. So far as I can secure
you from even the possibility of misfortune, I will do it. I have
brought a solicitor here to-day, in order that he may read you a will
which I have this morning executed in your favour."
"A will!" repeated Madame Durski; "you are only too good to me. But
there is something horrible to my mind in these legal formalities."
"That is only a woman's prejudice. It is the feminine idea that a man
must needs be at the point of death when he makes his will. And now let
me explain the nature of this will," continued Douglas. "I have told
you that if I should happen to die without direct heirs, the estate
left me by Sir Oswald Eversleigh will go to my cousin Reginald. That
estate, from which is derived my income, I have no power to alienate; I
am a tenant for life only. But my income has been double, and sometimes
treble, my expenditure, for my habits have been very simple, and my
life only that of a student in the Temple. My sole extravagance,
indeed, has been the collection of a library. I have, therefore, been
able to save twelve thousand pounds, and this sum is my own to
bequeath.
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