will by which it was provided that half his property should go to that
woman and her child?"

"It would never have gone by such a will," replied the major easily.
"Your Aunt Polly was in her dotage, and merely dreaming. Your father
would never have been such a fool; but even if he had, no such will
could have stood the test of the courts. It would clearly have been due
to the improper influence of a designing woman."

"So that legally, as well as morally," said Mrs. Carteret, "the will
would have been of no effect?"

"Not the slightest. A jury would soon have broken down the legal claim.
As for any moral obligation, there would have been nothing moral about
the affair. The only possible consideration for such a gift was an
immoral one. I don't wish to speak harshly of your father, my dear,
but his conduct was gravely reprehensible. The woman herself had no
right or claim whatever; she would have been whipped and expelled from
the town, if justice--blind, bleeding justice, then prostrate at the
feet of slaves and aliens--could have had her way!"

"But the child"--

"The child was in the same category. Who was she, to have inherited the
estate of your ancestors, of which, a few years before, she would
herself have formed a part? The child of shame, it was hers to pay the
penalty. But the discussion is all in the air, Olivia. Your father never
did and never would have left such a will."

This conversation relieved Mrs. Carteret's uneasiness. Going to her room
shortly afterwards, she took the envelope from her bureau drawer and
drew out a bulky paper. The haunting fear that it might be such a will
as her aunt had suggested was now removed; for such an instrument, in
the light of what her husband had said confirming her own intuitions,
would be of no valid effect. It might be just as well, she thought, to
throw the paper in the fire without looking at it. She wished to think
as well as might be of her father, and she felt that her respect for his
memory would not be strengthened by the knowledge that he had meant to
leave his estate away from her; for her aunt's words had been open to
the construction that she was to have been left destitute. Curiosity
strongly prompted her to read the paper. Perhaps the will contained no
such provision as she had feared, and it might convey some request or
direction which ought properly to be complied with.

She had been standing in front of the bureau while these thoughts passed
th