“She’s a good girl,” said Kitty. “I always liked her; and she must have heard, as I did, so much of Cicely’s chatter, that she feared some sort of suspicion would fall on Cicely, and she wanted to divert it toward Miss Morton instead.”
“As usual, with your quick wits, you’ve gone right to the heart of her motive,” said Rob; “but it may be more serious than you’ve yet thought of. Miss Morton inherits, you know.”
“Yes, now,” said Kitty significantly, “since she burnt that other will.”
“What other will?”
“Oh, don’t you see? The will she burnt was a later one, that didn’t give her this house. She burnt it so the earlier one would stand.”
“How do you know this?”
“I don’t know it, except by common sense! What else would she take from Maddy’s desk and burn except a will? And, of course, a will not in her favor, leaving the one that did bequeath the house to her to appear as the latest will.”
“Does this line of argument take us any further?” said Rob, so seriously that Kitty began to think.
“You don’t mean,” she whispered, “that Miss Morton—in order to——”
“To receive her legacy——”