Carmel said nothing; her eyes were devouring the contents of the paper. She read it through carefully to the end, then she asked:
"What was the date of the will in which Grandfather left the Chase to me? Was it not some time in January? Well, this is certainly a later date. It must have been signed the very day before he died!"
"Does it make any difference?" inquired Dulcie breathlessly.
Carmel had taken the paper away from her cousins, and stood in the window mastering the meaning of the legal language. She read a certain passage over and over again carefully before she answered. Then she looked out through the study window—that window with its wonderful view over the whole range of the Ingleton property—she gazed at the gardens and woods and fields that for more than a year had been hers, and hers alone, the estate which to claim as heiress she had been brought from her Sicilian home.
"All the difference in the world," she said quietly. "Grandfather changed his mind at the last, and left the Chase to Everard after all!"
"To Everard?"
"Oh, Carmel!"
"Are you certain?"
"Can there be any mistake?"
"Is the will properly signed? Let me look! Yes, it seems signed and witnessed, as far as I can tell!"