"'As a man sows,' you say, and you deny him another seeding and it may be a better harvest. You shut the door;--and if you shut it, it may not swing open again! With me it was the turning of a long lane. Hugh perhaps has not turned--yet." A breath of that past life had swept anew over Harry, the old shuddering recoil again had rushed upon him. It gave his voice a curious energy as he ended: "And I have seen how far a man may go and yet--come back!"
There was a pause. The judge had an inspiration. He folded the parchment, and rose.
"Perhaps it would be as well," he said in a matter-of-fact way, "if the signing be left open for the present. Last testaments, whatever their provisions, are more or less serious matters, and in your case,"--he nodded toward the occupant of the chair--"there is not the element of necessitous haste. Of course," he added tentatively, "I am at your service at any time."
He rose as he spoke, and laid the document on the table.
For a moment David Stires sat in silence. Then he said, with a glint of the old ironic fire: "You should have been a special pleader, Sanderson. There's no client too bad for them to make out a case for! Well ... well ... we won't sign to-night. I will read it over again when I am more equal to it."
His visitors made their adieux, and as the door closed upon them, the girl came to the wheel-chair and wistfully drew the parchment from his hands.
"You're a good girl, Jessica," he said, "too good to a rascal you've never known. But there--go to your room, child. I can ring for Blake when I want anything."
For long the old man sat alone, musing in his chair, his eyes on the painted portrait on the wall. The image there was just as young and fair and joyous as though yesterday she had stood in bridal white beside him, instead of so long ago--so long ago! His lips moved. "In return for the care and sorrow," he muttered, "all the days of his life!"
At length he sighed and took up a magazine. He was thinking of Harry Sanderson.
"How like!" he said aloud. "So Sanderson sowed his wild oats, too!... When he stood there, with the light on his face--when he talked--I--I could almost have thought it was Hugh!"
Harry Sanderson and the judge parted at the gate, and Harry walked slowly home in the moonlight.