Gosford, as my father,
said his will would be, that would have left me twenty thousand
dollars from the estate; but giving Mr. Gosford fifty thousand
dollars leaves me nothing."
"And so you adventured on a little larceny," sneered the
Englishman.
The boy stood very straight and white.
"I do not understand this thing," he said, "but I do not believe
that my father would deceive me. He never did deceive me in his
life. I may have been a disappointment to him, but my father
was a gentle man." His voice went up strong and clear. "And I
refuse to believe that he would tell me one thing and do
another!"
One could not fail to be impressed, or to believe that the boy
spoke the truth.
"We are sorry," said Lewis, "but the will is valid and we cannot
go behind it."
My father walked about the room, his face in reflection. Gosford
sat at his ease, transcribing a note on his portfolio. Old Gaeki
had gone back to his chair and to his little case of bottles; he
got them up on his knees, as though he would be diverted by
fingering the tools of his profession. Lewis was in plain
distress, for he held the law and its disposition to be
inviolable; the boy stood with a find defiance, ennobled by the
trust in his father's honor.
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