CHAPTER VII

HANS CASPAR'S WILL

Sir Audrey Rivers' diagnosis proved correct. Just a year after his visit to Beachbourne Mr. Caspar died.

His will caused malicious merriment to those who knew "Unser Hans," as he was called in Society.

He left the bulk of his vast fortune in trust for the Whitechapel Hospital--with one proviso: that no clergyman was to act as a trustee. For the rest he bequeathed £300 a year for life, free of Income Tax, to his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Edward Caspar; and should she pre-decease her husband, the sum was to be continued to his son.

"Sound fellow that," said Mr. Trupp, when he heard. "Old Man Caspar to the end."

"It's rather hard on our Mr. Caspar," remarked his wife, who had known Edward Caspar in London before either had married.

"My dear," replied the surgeon, with the slight sententiousness peculiar to him, "the only way to help that sort of son is to be hard on him."

"I hope you'll never help my Joe like that," cried the beautiful woman warmly.

Mr. Trupp loved to tease his wife.

"If your Joe goes that way I will," he grinned--"and worse. So mind your eye!"

Another woman who was not amused by Hans Caspar's will was the woman who benefited by it.

Anne Caspar had the qualities of her kind. If she was hard, she was passionately loyal and genuinely devoted to her Ned. When she had told Mr. Trupp that her marriage had been a love-match she had but spoken the truth as regards her part in it. Therefore on the morning she opened the letter from the lawyers announcing that she had come by miracle into what was for the daughter of the Ealing tobacconist a fortune, she felt a slight had been put upon her husband and was perturbed accordingly.

With pensive face she went into the study, wearing the long blue over-all in which Edward Caspar had first seen her.

Her husband stood in his shirt-sleeves, pipe in mouth, a loose, round-shouldered figure, splashing away with vague enthusiasm at a canvas in the sunny bow-window.

She realized in a moment that she had caught him in one of his rare uplifted moods.

"Ned," she said.

"What-ho, my Annie!"

"Your father's left us £300 a year."

He chuckled as he painted, one eye on the gleaming mystery of the Downs.

"Been opening my letters, you burglar?"

"The letter's to me."

This time he turned, saw her face, and steadied.

She offered him the envelope.

He glanced at the address.

"Yes, it's to you all right. Funny they didn't write to me."

"Won't you read it, Ned?" she said gently.

He skimmed the contents and winced.

"That's all right, Anne," he said, handing it back to her, and patting her hand. "The old man's been as good as his word--and better, by the amount of Income Tax."

"Such a way to do it and all," said Anne censoriously.

He pinched her arm.

"Perhaps it's for the best," he said. "And anyway, it doesn't much matter." If Edward Caspar was by no means sure of himself, he was sure beyond question of the woman life had given him.

She lifted her face to his, and it was beautiful.

"Ned," she said; and he kissed her.