CHAPTER VII.
The morning prior to the funeral it pleased Mrs. Fraudhurst, on meeting Ralph Coleman in the long corridor, to request that worthy individual to grant her a private interview in the general library at eleven o'clock, precisely, the lawyer bowed in the affirmative and passed on.
At the time appointed the widow, in very deep but fashionable mourning, entered the library by one door, and a few minutes later the new baronet presented himself at another. After closing it he advanced to the centre table and waited for the lady to announce the nature of her business with him.
In a low, clear and cold, but perfectly steady voice she thus addressed him, "Some two years since I informed you by letter of the existence of a will in which the late baronet, after paying a gratuity of five thousand pounds to Arthur Carlton, left Miss Effingham sole heiress. In that will the name of Ralph Coleman does not appear. If this document be read to-morrow," she continued after a slight pause, "Vellenaux is lost to you forever."
"But, my dear madam," he replied, "among the late baronet's papers will, doubtless, be found a codicil in my behalf, in fact my cousin distinctly promised me that he would make a suitable provision for the successor to the title."
"And so he would have done had he lived long enough to complete it," was the lady's quiet reply.
"You do not mean to say that you are certain Sir Jasper made no such provision," enquired the lawyer in a quick and excited tone.
"No document of that kind had been executed prior to the baronet's death," she boldly asserted, advancing towards him. "Now listen to me: providing the will in question be not forthcoming after the funeral, the law will declare you heir to the estate. Now, if you swear to me by all that you hold most sacred, that you will allow me one thousand per annum and a suite of apartments at Vellenaux so long as I shall live, no will shall appear, and within one hour after the body of the late Sir Jasper has been consigned to the tomb, you shall become Sir Ralph Coleman and master of Vellenaux and its broad lands."
"But," was the cautious reply of the wily lawyer, "how know I that any will has been made or that the Baronet has not kept faith with me. Your word is all that I have to depend on for the truth or falsity of the statement." He knew her to be an unscrupulous woman, but shrewd withal, and could not bring himself to believe that she would compromise herself so far as to have fraudulently possessed herself of, Sir Jasper's papers, yet her language indicated very strongly that something of the kind was the case.
"If she really has them," he thought, "one thousand per annum would not be too large a sum to purchase her silence concerning them; and as the bargain would be a verbal one, and unknown to any but ourselves, she could not hereafter, by any disclosures that she might make, convict me as an accomplice to the transaction." These thoughts flashed through his mind ere she again spoke.