"before you enter on your business arrangements?"

Mr. Pendril replied ceremoniously by a
gesture of assent. Magdalen's resolution to
possess herself of the Instructions, did not appear
to have produced a favourable impression on
the lawyer's mind.

"You mentioned what you were so kind as to
do, in our interests, when you first wrote to Mr.
Michael Vanstone," she continued. "You said
you had told him all the circumstances. I want
—if you will allow me—to be made quite sure
of what he really knew about us when he sent
these orders to his lawyer. Did he know that
my father had made a will, and that he had
left our fortunes to my sister and myself?"

"He did know it," said Mr. Pendril.

"Did you tell him how it happened that we
are left in this helpless position?"

"I told him that your father was entirely
unaware, when he married, of the necessity for
making another will."

"And that another will would have been
made, after he saw Mr. Clare, but for the
dreadful misfortune of his death?"

"He knew that, also."

"Did he know that my father's untiring goodness
and kindness to both of us——"

Her voice faltered for the first time: she
sighed, and put her hand to her head wearily.
Norah spoke entreatingly to her; Miss Garth
spoke entreatingly to her; Mr. Clare sat silent,
watching her more and more earnestly. She
answered her sister's remonstrance with a faint
smile. "I will keep my promise," she said;
"I will distress nobody." With that reply, she
turned again to Mr. Pendril; and steadily
reiterated the question—but in another form of
words.

"Did Mr. Michael Vanstone know that my
father's great anxiety was to make sure of
providing for my sister and myself?"

"He knew it in your father's own words. I
sent him an extract from your father's last letter
to me."

"The letter which asked you to come for
God's sake, and relieve him from the dreadful
thought that his daughters were unprovided for?
The letter which said he should not rest in his
grave if he left us disinherited?"

"That letter and those words."

She paused, still keeping her eyes steadily fixed
on the lawyer's face.

"I want to fasten it all in my mind," she
said, "before I go on. Mr. Michael Vanstone
knew of the first will; he knew what prevented
the making of the second will; he knew of the
letter, and he read the words. What did he
know of besides? Did you tell him of my
mother's last illness? Did you say that her
share in the money would have been left to us,
if she could have lifted her dying hand in your
presence? Did you try to make him ashamed
of the cruel law of England which calls girls
in our situation Nobody's Children, and which
allows him to use us as he is using us now?"

"I put all those considerations to him. I
left none of them doubtful; I left none of them
out."

She slowly reached her hand to the copy of
the Instructions; and slowly folded it up again,
in the shape in which it had been presented to
her. "I am much obliged to you, Mr. Pendril."
With those words, she bowed, and gently
pushed the manuscript back across the table;
then turned to her sister.

"Norah," she said, "if we both of us live
to grow old, and if you ever forget all that we
owe to Michael Vanstone—come to me, and I
will remind you."

She rose and walked across the room by
herself to the window. As she passed Mr. Clare, the
old man stretched out his claw-like fingers, and
caught her fast by the arm before she was aware
of him.

"What is this mask of yours hiding?" he
asked, forcing her to bend to him, and looking
close into her face. "Which of the extremes
of human temperature does your courage start
from—the dead cold or the white hot?"

She shrank back from him; and turned away
her head in silence. She would have resented
that unscrupulous intrusion on her own thoughts
from any man alive but Frank's father. He
dropped her arm as suddenly as he had taken
it, and let her go on to the window. "No,"
he said to himself, "not the cold extreme, whatever
else it may be. So much the worse for her,
and for all belonging to her."

There was a momentary pause. Once more
the dripping rustle of the rain, and the steady
ticking of the clock filled up the gap of silence.
Mr. Pendril put the Instructions back in his
pocket, considered a little; and, turning towards
Norah and Miss Garth, recalled their attention
to the present and pressing necessities of the time.

"Our consultation has been needlessly
prolonged," he said, "by painful references to the
past. We shall be better employed in settling
our arrangements for the future. I am obliged
to return to town this evening. Pray let me
hear how I can best assist you; pray tell me
what trouble and what responsibility I can take
off your hands."

For the moment, neither Norah nor Miss
Garth seemed to be capable of answering him.
Magdalen's reception of the news which
annihilated the marriage prospect that her father's
own lips had placed before her not a month
since, had bewildered and dismayed them alike.
They had summoned their courage to meet the
shock of her passionate grief, or to face the
harder trial of witnessing her speechless despair.
But they were not prepared for her invincible
resolution to read the Instructions; for the
terrible questions which she had put to the lawyer;
for her immovable determination to fix all the
circumstances in her mind, under which Michael
Vanstone's decision had been pronounced. There
she stood at the window, an unfathomable
mystery to the sister who had never been parted
from her, to the governess who had trained her
from a child. Miss Garth remembered the dark
doubts which had crossed her mind, on the day