much of the loss of the money, although that was a consideration, as
of the shame Sylvia would feel at her position. Then a gleam of hope
darted into his mind. "Mr. Norman was married to Sylvia's mother under
his own name. You can't prove the marriage void."

"I have no wish to. When did this marriage take place?"

Beecot looked at the lawyer, who replied. "Twenty-two years ago," and he
gave the date.

Mrs. Krill fished in a black morocco bag she carried and brought out a
shabby blue envelope. "I thought this might be needed," she said,
passing it to Pash. "You will find there my marriage certificate. I
became the wife of Lemuel Krill thirty years ago. And, as I am still
living, I fear the later marriage--" She smiled blandly and shrugged her
shoulders again. "Poor girl!" she said with covert insolence.

"Sylvia does not need your pity," cried Beecot, stung by the
insinuation.

"Indeed, sir," said Mrs. Krill, sadly, and with the look of a
treacherous cat, "I fear she needs the pity of all right-thinking
people. Many would speak harshly of her, seeing what she is, but my
troubles have taught me charity. I repeat that I am sorry for the girl."

"And again I say there is no need," rejoined Paul, throwing back his
head; "and you forget, madam, there is a will."

Mrs. Krill's fresh color turned to a dull white, and her hard eyes shot
fire. "A will," she said slowly. "I shall dispute the will if it is not
in my favor. I am the widow of this man and I claim full justice.
Besides," she went on, wetting her full lips with her tongue, "I
understood from the newspapers that the money was left to Mr. Krill's
daughter."

"Certainly. To Sylvia Krill."

"Norman, sir. She has no right to any other name. But I really do not
see why I should explain myself to you, sir. If you choose to give this
girl your name you will be doing a good act. At present the poor
creature is--nobody." She let the last word drop from her lips slowly,
so as to give Paul its full sting.

Beecot said nothing. He could not dispute what she said. If this woman
could prove the marriage of thirty years ago, then Krill, or Norman as
he called himself, had committed bigamy, and, in the hard eyes of the
law, Sylvia was nobody's child. And that the marriage could be proved
Paul saw well enough from the looks of the lawyer, who was studying the
certificate which he had drawn from the shabby blue envelope. "Then the
will--the money is left to Sylvia," he said