“There is something else I ought to speak about. You remember that you advised me to make use of my first opportunity to visit the little stairway hidden these many years from everybody but my father? I did so, as I have already told you, and in that box, from which the will was drawn I found, doubled up and crushed into the bottom of it, this.”
Thrusting her hand into a large silken bag which lay at her side on the divan on which she was seated, she drew out a crumpled document which I took from her with some misgiving.
“The first will of all,” I exclaimed on opening it. “The one he was told by his lawyer to destroy, and did not.”
“But it is of no use now,” she protested. “It—it—”
“Take it,” I broke in almost harshly. The sight of it had affected me far beyond what it should have done. “Put it away—keep it—till I have time to—”
“To do what?” she asked, eyeing me with some wonder as she put the document back in the bag.
“To think out my whole duty,” I smiled, recovering myself and waving the subject aside.
“But,” she suggested timidly but earnestly as well, “won’t it complicate matters? Mr. Dunn bade Father to destroy it.” And her eye stole towards the fireplace where some small logs were burning.
“He would not tell us to do so now,” I protested. “You must keep it religiously, as we hope to keep our honor. Don’t you see that, cousin mine?”
“Yes,” came with pride now. But from what that pride sprung it would take more than man to tell.