‘Give it to me!’ said Mrs. Renton, from behind; and her son, upon whom the truth was beginning to dawn, threw it into her lap. It flashed upon them all at once, and a kind of delirium, fell on the party,--flouted, laughed at, turned into derision, as it seemed, by the implacable dead.
‘It means that there is no will. I have been keeping a blank sheet of paper for you,’ said Mr. Ponsonby bitterly, ‘for seven years.’
And then there was another pause, and they all looked at each other, too much bewildered to understand the position, as if the earth had been rent asunder at their very feet.
‘We never did anything to him to deserve this!’ said Laurie suddenly, with a voice of pain. ‘Is there no mistake?’
As for Ben, he said nothing. His eyes followed the gleam of the paper, which his mother was turning over and over in her helpless hands, as if the secret of it might still be found out. But by degrees his eyes lighted up. Almost unconsciously he made a step apart, separating himself, as it were, from the audience, placing himself by Mr. Ponsonby’s side as a speaker. There was a certain triumph in his eye. After all, he was but a man, like other men, and the heir; and his rights had been debated and questioned by everybody, himself included. There was a flush and movement of satisfaction about him,--a sudden warm blaze out of the absorbing disappointment, baffled hopes, and bitter resentment which were rising round him.
‘If there is no will,’ he said, with a deep flush on his face, and nervous gesture of his hand, ‘Renton is mine, as it ought to be. I am in my father’s place; and what has been done amiss, it is my place to undo. I cannot believe that there is any one here who doubts me.’
While he was speaking, Alice uttered a little cry. She had turned to him her white face, but without seeing him or any one. ‘Must we go back to India?’ she said, with a voice of anguish. That was the shape it took to the young pair. She was pale as marble, but Frank’s face was blazing red.
‘Hush, Alice!’ he said, fiercely; ‘that is our own affair.’
Ben made a movement towards them in his impatience. ‘I have told you you should not go back!’ he cried. ‘I am here in my father’s place to set all right.’