There never was any real doubt that the boy was legitimate; but some devil whispered the question in Sternhold’s mind, and, he brooded over it. I say some devil, but, in actual fact, it was one of those parasites who have been once or twice alluded to. Is there anything that class will stop at in the hope of a few formal lines in a rich man’s will?
It was their game to destroy Lucia. The plan was cunningly formed. As if by accident, passages in Lucia’s previous life, when she was a stroller, were alluded to in Sternhold’s presence.
He grew excited, and eager to hear more; to probe her supposed dishonour. The parasites distinctly refused; it was too serious a matter. Still, if he wished to hear—it was common talk—all he had to do was to go into the billiard rooms. Some of the fellows there did not know him by sight, and they were sure to talk about it.
Sternhold went. Of all the sights in the world, to see that old man making a miserable attempt to play billiards while his ears were acutely listening to the infamous tales purposely started to inflame him, nothing could be more deplorable. The upshot was he grew downright mad, but not so mad that anything could be done with him. He watched over Lucia like a hawk. She could not move; her life became really burdensome.
It must be remembered that at that time she really was, though wild enough in blood, perfectly stainless in fact. The temper in the woman was long restrained. In the first place, she wanted his money; in the next place, there was her son, whom she loved with all the vigour of her nature. She bore it for a year or two, then the devil in her began to stir.
Old Sternhold, who had watched and inquired hour by hour all this time, had found nothing wrong; but this very fact was turned against her by those devils, his lickspittles. They represented that this was part of her cunning—that she had determined he should have no hold upon her, in order that her son might inherit. They reminded Sternhold that, although he could not divorce her, he could alter his will. Here they rather overshot the mark, because he began to reflect that if he cut off his son the old question would arise—To whom should he leave his city, as he called it?
The miserable dilemma haunted and worried his already weakened brain and body till he grew a shadow, and Lucia had hopes that he would die. But he did not; in a month or two the natural strength of his constitution brought him round.
All this time Lucia was in dread about his will. Aurelian astute and cunning as he was hardly knew what to advise or how to act. He had his spies—for he was wealthy now to a certain degree, and could afford it. He had his strong suspicions that some of the companies who had leased the property for building had a hand in the persecution of Lucia, and in the inflammation of Sternhold’s jealousy. It was certainly their interest to get the boy disinherited. Aurelian began to grow seriously alarmed. Sternhold was stronger and better—perhaps if he had had Aurelian for physician he would not have recovered so fast; but with his distrust of Lucia, came an equal distrust of her brother, and he would not acknowledge him.
Aurelian looked at it like this: Sternhold was now about seventy-five, and had no organic disease. His father, Romy, had lived to a ripe old age; his grandfather, the basket-maker, though shot in the prime of life, came of a hardy, half-gypsy stock. The chances were that Sternhold, with all the comforts that money could buy, would live another ten years. This very worry, this jealousy, by keeping his mental faculties alive, might contribute to longevity. In ten years, in a year, in a month, what might not happen?
His greatest fear was in Lucia herself, who had shown signs of late that she must burst forth. If she did, and without his being near her, there was no knowing what indiscretion she might not commit. It was even suspicious that Sternhold had recovered. It looked as if he had made up his mind, and had signed a will averse to Lucia’s interest and his son’s—had settled it and dismissed it. This was a terrible thought, this last. When he suggested the possibility of it to Lucia, you should have seen her. She raved; her features swelled up and grew inflamed; her frame dilated; her blood seemed as if it would burst the veins: till at last she hissed out, “I’ll kill him!” and fell fainting.
Aurelian determined one point at once. There must be no more delay; action was the order. But what? Suppose the worst. Suppose the will already made, and against Lucia’s interests, what was the course to be taken? Why, to accumulate evidence to invalidate it. Prove him mad!
VIII
The idea having been once entertained, grew and grew, till it overshadowed everything else. The singular circumstance then happened of one man slowly and carefully collecting evidence during another’s lifetime to prove him insane the moment he died.
Aurelian placed his principal reliance upon the violent jealousy Sternhold had exhibited. So vehement and irregulated a passion founded upon mere phantasms of the imagination, was in itself strong presumptive proof of an unsound mind. He had no difficulty in finding witnesses to Sternhold’s outrageous conduct. The old man had been seen walking up and down the street, on the opposite side of the pavement to the house in which Lucia lived, for hours and hours at a time, simply watching. He had been heard to use violent and threatening language. He had made himself ill. The mind was so overwrought by excitement that
