had been given, and the search commenced, she
retired and went to her own room. It was impossible for her to take a
part in the work that was being done, and almost equally impossible
for her to remain without seeming to take too lively an interest
in the proceeding. Every point of the affair was clear to her
imagination. It could not now be doubted by her that her uncle,
doubly actuated by the presence of the man he disliked and the
absence of her whom he so dearly loved, had found himself driven to
revoke the decision to which he had been brought. As she put it to
herself, his love had got the better of his conscience during the
weakness of his latter days. It was a pity,--a pity that it should
have been so! It was to be regretted that there should have been no
one near him to comfort him in the misery which had produced such
a lamentable result. A will, she thought, should be the outcome
of a man's strength, and not of his weakness. Having obeyed his
conscience, he should have clung to his conscience. But all that
could not affect what had been done. It seemed to be certain to her
that this other will had been made and executed. Even though it
should have been irregularly executed so as to be null and void,
still it must for a time at least have had an existence. Where was it
now? Having these thoughts in her mind, it was impossible for her to
go about the house among those who were searching. It was impossible
for her to encounter the tremulous misery of her cousin. That he
should shiver and shake and be covered with beads of perspiration
during a period of such intense perturbation did not seem to her to
be unnatural. It was not his fault that he had not been endowed with
especial manliness. She disliked him in his cowardice almost more
than before; but she would not on that account allow herself to
suspect him of a crime.

Mr Apjohn, just before he went, had an interview with her in her own
room.

"I cannot go without a word," he said, "but its only purport will be
to tell you that I cannot as yet express any decided opinion in this
matter."

"Do not suppose, Mr Apjohn, that I am anxious for another will," she
said.

"I am;--but that has nothing to do with it. That he did make a will,
and have it witnessed by these two Cantors, is, I think, certain.
That he should afterwards have destroyed the will without telling the
witnesses, who would be sure hereafter to think and talk of what they
had done, seems to