he hour for signing the will had been set
at nine o'clock, but it was surely long past that time now. No, the clock
in the office is striking; it is just nine. Would she recognize the
summons? Assuredly; for with the last stroke she lifts the latch of her
door and comes out.

She has exchanged her dark dress for a light one and has arranged her
hair in the manner he likes best. But he scarcely notes these changes in
the interest he feels in her intentions and the manner in which she
proceeds to carry out her purpose.

She does not advance at once to the staircase, but creeps first to her
sister's door, where she stands listening for a minute or so in an
attitude of marked anxiety. Then, with a gesture expressive of repugnance
and alarm, she steps quickly forward and disappears down the staircase
without vouchsafing one glance in his direction.

His vision of her as she looked in that short passage from room to
staircase was momentary only, but it left him shuddering. Never before
had he seen resolve burning to a white heat in the human countenance.
There was something abnormal in it, taken with his knowledge of her face
in its happier and more wholesome aspects. The innocent, affectionate
young girl, whose soul he had looked upon as a weeded garden, had become
in a moment to his eyes a suffering, determined, deeply concentrated
woman of unsuspected power and purpose. A suggestion of wildness in her
air added to the mysterious impression she made; an impression which
rendered this instant memorable to him and set his pulses beating to
a tune quite new to them. What was she going to do? Sign away all her
property? Beggar her heirs for--He could not say what. No; even such
a resolution could not account for her remarkable expression of
concentrated will. There was in her distracted mind something of more
tragic import than this; and he dared not question what; dared not even
approach this woman who, less than a week before, had linked herself to
him for life. The uneasy light in those fixed and gleaming eyes betrayed
a reason too lightly poised. He feared any additional shock for her.
Better that she should go down undisturbed to her adviser, who bore a
reputation which insured a judicious use of his power. What if she were
about to will away her fortune to the man she called brother? He himself
had no use for her wealth. Her health and happiness were all that
concerned him, and these possibly depended on her being allow