"I can make up my mind to do anything that is necessary," she said.
It seemed to the old Judge that no heart of flesh and blood could withstand her as she looked that day.
Sitting by the window of his office the next afternoon Mr. De Jarnette saw his sister-in-law's carriage drive slowly down the street and stop before the Conococheague building. Mr. Harcourt was beside her. He was much at the Massachusetts Avenue house these days, and Mrs. Pennybacker encouraged it. "Your nonsense will do her good just now," she told him. "She needs a breeze from the outside world that will freshen the air without blowing directly upon her." After this he fell into the habit of dropping in at odd times—after office hours, and occasionally for Sunday night supper. Mr. De Jarnette had noticed on the day of the trial when Margaret lay in a faint that he came directly to her as though his place were at her side. Looking at them now as they sat there together and thinking of all that had occurred in this room he felt somehow bereft anew.
After his brother's death he had given up his own room across the hall and moved into the one Victor had occupied. Dr. Semple had urged him to give up the suite and go somewhere else, but with an obstinacy which was a part of the man he refused.
On the floor was still the dark spot made by Victor De Jarnette's life blood. His brother would never even have the carpet changed. Only the luxurious furnishings of the room had given place to the plain office furniture of the room across the hall.
It was here that he received Margaret. If he had planned her coming he would have received her here.
It was the first time she had been in the room since the day her husband lay dead on the floor. Instinctively her eyes sought the place, and Richard De Jarnette watching her closely, saw a shudder pass through her. The same expression of horror that convulsed her features that day came over them again. It was but momentary, however. She had come here for a purpose and she was not to be deterred. She threw her soul into that plea.
"You come to me here," he said at length, in a tone that promised little—"in this room—to urge the setting aside of my dead brother's will?"
"Why should I not? You know he had no right to make such a will—no moral right."