“I won’t hush! I’m going to find out who killed my brother! He was the only human being whom I loved. These step-children mean nothing to me—although we have always lived harmoniously enough. Now, if Phyllis is innocent, that’s all there is about it. But her innocence must be proved!”
Phyllis gave her stepmother a kindly, pitying glance.
“Now, Millicent,” she said, “you’re excited and nervous, and you don’t know what you’re saying. Go and lie down, dear——”
“‘Go and lie down, dear!’” Millicent mocked her, eyes flashing and her voice hard. “Yes, that’s just what you’d say, of course! You fear investigation! No one would dream of suspecting you—unless they knew what I know! and you say—‘go and lie down!’ Indeed, I won’t go and lie down! Now, look here, Phyllis Lindsay, you knew what was in that will of my brother’s! I didn’t—but you did!”
“No, I didn’t, Millicent——”
“You did! You led my brother on—and on—letting him think you would marry him—then, when he’d made a will in your favor, you killed him to get the money! That’s what you did! And I’ll prove it—if it costs me all my share of my poor brother’s fortune!”
She collapsed then, and sat, huddled in the big chair, shaking with sobs.
Without a word, Doctor Davenport went to her, assisted her to rise, and, summoning a maid to help him, took Millicent Lindsay away to her own room.
“What ails her, anyway?” Louis growled, looking at Phyllis, curiously.
“Oh, she’s like that when she gets a tantrum,” the girl responded, looking worried. “She’s really good friends with me, but if she takes a notion she turns against me, and she can’t think of anything bad enough to say to me.”