But though she told herself this, Mrs. Stanton hesitated. In her inmost soul, she could not feel sure that it was right for her thus, alone, to examine the things that old Stephen Lorraine had kept hidden from others. She knew that if she did so, she would not like to speak of it to her daughter.
She turned from the bureau. She stepped through the open window on to the gravel path and took one or two turns up and down the length of the lawn. The temptation grew stronger as she lingered. All was still about her; there was not even a gardener in sight. Mrs. Rogers and the servants were in their own quarters; there seemed no cause to fear disturbance.
"You will never have so good an opportunity again," a voice said within her.
She re-entered the library. Like many another daughter of Eve, she looked at the forbidden fruit till it grew irresistible.
"Why should I not?" she asked herself again, as she drew a chair in front of the bureau and seated herself. "The lawyer must have looked at all it contains, so why should not I?"
She turned the key in the lock, and the bureau opened out easily. The sloping desk, dark with age and ink-stains, bore witness to a long term of service. Behind ran two rows of pigeon-holes. These contained receipted bills, invoices, business letters, nothing that could interest her. But a row of locked drawers at the side yielded more interesting matter. Here were newspaper cuttings, referring to events that she could remember, private letters, which she did not hesitate to scan, and presently, closely wrapped in white paper, she found a lock of a woman's hair.
She did not think of a like discovery in the desk of Swift, with its half-savage, wholly pathetic description: "Only a woman's hair," but she wondered at this revelation of a cherished sentiment in the breast of the old man, whom she had always regarded as harsh and unfeeling. Whose hair had this been—his mother's, or a gift from that Tabitha Rudkin whose name she had heard laughingly associated with his youth? And what was the meaning of this morocco case which lay in the same drawer? She opened it, and saw the miniature of a lovely girl with clear complexion, soft grey eyes, and masses of dark curls bunched on either side her forehead, after the fashion of her day. So young and fair she looked; but her youthful charms had long faded, and the years were many since, at a mature age, Death set his seal to her life, for a few words inscribed within the case told that this was the portrait of old Stephen's mother, who had died at the age of fifty-five.
Mrs. Stanton closed the case with a shiver. She did not like to be reminded of the inevitable lot, and the evanescence of beauty and joy. She tried to shut the drawer; but something was wrong, she could not get it back into its place. Then she saw that the framework of the drawers was somehow awry. Inadvertently she must have touched a hidden spring, for now, at a second pull, the whole nest of drawers swung to one side and revealed a hollow space behind fitted up with pigeon-holes. Here was one of the secret recesses of which she had heard.
But it was empty. No. What was that in the furthest partition? Mrs. Stanton put in her hand and drew forth a long blue roll. But as her eyes fell on certain words written on it, she started and recoiled as though a serpent had bitten her.
"Last Will and Testament of Stephen Lorraine." What had she found? Another will? But not a valid one—that was impossible.