"You need but name the thing and I will do it willingly."

Instead of naming it he shot a question at me, driving it home with
certain random thrustings of the shifty eyes.

"Who is your next of kin, Captain Ireton?"

"Septimus, of the same name, master of Iretondene, on the James River,
and a major in the Virginia line," I answered, wondering how my cousin
once removed should figure in the present coil. But Gilbert Stair's next
question dispelled the mystery.

"If you should die intestate, this Septimus would be your heir?"

"As next of kin, I should suppose he would. But I have nothing to
devise."

"True; and yet"--he paused again as if the wording of it were not easy.

"Be free to speak your mind, Mr. Stair," said I.

"'Tis this," he cried, gathering himself as with an effort. "You've
claimed my daughter as your wife before them all, and when you die
to-morrow morning you'll leave her neither wife nor maid. I think--I
think you'd best make that lie of yours the truth."

If one of his thin hands that clutched the chair arms had pressed a
secret spring and loosed a trap to send me gasping down an oubliette, I
should have been the less astounded. Indeed, for some short space I
thought him mad; yet, on second thought, I saw the method in his
madness. Could Margery be brought to view it calmly, this was a sword to
cut the knot of all entanglements.

As matters stood, the world would call her widow at my death; and since
a woman is first of all the keeper of her own good name, she would never
dare aver the truth. So in common justice she should own the name the
world would call her by. Again, as matters stood, no wrong could come of
it to her, or Richard Jennifer, or any. Dick would love her none the
less because a dying man had given her his name for some few hours. And
if, at any future time, the Ireton title should revive and this poor
double-dealing miser should be forced to quit his hold on Appleby
Hundred, my father's acres would be hers in her own right. One breach in
all this sudden-builded wall I saw, but could not mend it. With the
Ireton acres hers by double right, the baronet would press his suit with
greater vigor than before. But as to this, no further act of mine could
help or hinder; and if I died her husband she would in decency delay a
while.

So summing up in far less time than it has cost to write it out for you,
I gave my host his answer.

"I told you you might name the deed, and I would