the-best demeanour of that cursed woman
Auntie Hamps (yes, he now cursed her), and the candid greed of his
sister.

"You wouldn't do it, would ye?" Darius asked, in a tone that expected a
negative answer; but also with a rather plaintive appeal, as though he
were depending on Edwin for moral support against the formidable forces
of attack.

"I should not," said Edwin stoutly, touched by the strange wistful note
and by the glance. "Unless of course you really want to."

He did not care in the least whether the money would or would not be
really useful and reasonably safe. He did not care whose enmity he was
risking. His sense of fair play was outraged, and he would salve it at
any cost. He knew that had his father not been struck down and
defenceless, these despicable people would never have dared to demand
money from him. That was the only point that mattered.

The relief of Darius at Edwin's attitude in the affair was painful.
Hoping for sympathy from Edwin, he yet had feared in him another enemy.
Now he was reassured, and he could hide his feelings no better than a
child.

"Seemingly they can't wait till my will's opened!" he murmured, with a
scarcely successful affectation of grimness.

"Made a will, have you?" Edwin remarked, with an elaborate casualness
to imply that he had never till then given a thought to his father's
will, but that, having thought of the question, he was perhaps a very
little surprised that his father had indeed made a will.

Darius nodded, quite benevolently. He seemed to have forgotten his deep
grievance against Edwin in the matter of cheque-signing.

"Duncalf's got it," he murmured after a moment. Duncalf was the town
clerk and a solicitor.

So the will was made! And he had submissively signed away all control
over all monetary transactions. What more could he do, except expire
with the minimum of fuss? Truly Darius, in the local phrase, was now
`laid aside'! And of all the symptoms of his decay the most striking
and the most tragic, to Edwin, was that he showed no curiosity whatever
about business. Not one single word of inquiry had he uttered.

"You'll want shaving," said Edwin, in a friendly way.

Darius passed a hand over his face. He had ceased years ago to shave
himself, and had a subscription at Dick Jones's in Aboukir Street, close
by the shop.

"Aye!"

"Shall I send the barber up, or shall you let it grow?"

"What do you think?"

"Oh!" Edwin drawl