“Ah!” said Bayre.
“Not by me,” retorted the old woman, quickly. “What I should have done with it if I had found it doesn’t concern you or anybody now. As a matter of fact, it was hidden away by old Bartlett Bayre in a garret among some lumber, and was enclosed in an iron box. The Vazons stole the box with other things, and it was found broken open in their cottage by Jean, who found also the ashes of the papers that had been locked inside.”
“Not all of them, I think,” said Bayre, in a low voice.
He was beginning to feel rather afraid of the effect which the discovery of the will in his possession might have upon the old woman. Wicked, grasping, malicious and deceitful as she was, he was not anxious for the occurrence of another tragedy before his eyes.
But his words were enough to wake all her suspicions. Half-rising in her chair, leaning on the arm of it, she hissed out at him,—
“Let me see it! Let me see it!”
“Not now,” said he, gently but firmly; “you shall see it another time, in the presence of your solicitors and mine.”
One more doubt she had to satisfy, and only one.
“What was the date of it?” she asked sharply.
“April the 30th of last year,” answered he at once.