"Noble mother! May I ask your reasons?"
"Yes--and I will tell you my reasons," she said deliberately. "I half intended to agree to your scheme the other day, as I thought it would benefit my son--but now I have found a way to benefit him without participation in your villainy."
"The deuce you have," said Beaumont curiously. "How clever you are--come tell me all about it."
She smiled coldly at his evident uneasiness and went on speaking calmly with a certain malignant satisfaction which was not by any means acceptable to Mr. Beaumont.
"I asked the squire before he died to help Reginald Blake, telling him I was the boy's nurse and anxious to see him settled in life, he refused at first but by working on his delusion about re-incarnation I got him to give Reginald a cheque for one hundred pounds."
"Oh, and you think Reginald would prefer one hundred pounds down to ten thousand a year?" he said with an ugly look.
"Reginald doesn't know anything about it; the squire signed the cheque and wrote a letter, enclosed them both in an envelope and sealed it with his arms, then I, by his directions, locked it up in his desk."
"Where it is still?"
"No, I have got it. I have it here," she said, producing the letter from her bosom and holding it up to him.
"How did you get it?" he asked craftily.