At this Mr.Whitelaw groaned aloud.

If he could in any manner have adjusted his affairs so as to take his money with him, the suggestion might have seemed sensible enough; but, that being impracticable, it was the merest futility.

He had never made a will; it cost him too much anguish to give away his money even on paper.

And now it was virtually necessary that he should do so, or else, perhaps, his wealth would, by some occult process, be seized upon by the crown--a power which he had been accustomed to regard in the abstract with an antagonistic feeling, as being the root of queen's taxes.

To leave all to his wife, with some slight pension to Mrs.Tadman, seemed the most obvious course.