Miss Harmer paused for a moment, and Mr. Petersfield and the doctor saw that she glanced towards Father Eustace, who was looking on the ground.
"I do not know where my brother was in the habit of keeping his various documents."
"I said nothing about various documents, Miss Harmer," Dr. Ashleigh said, sternly. "I asked you, do you, or do you not, know where the will is?"
"I do not," Miss Harmer said, steadily. "Should you find the will, you will, I presume, let us know?"
"Should I find it, I will do so."
"It is not easy to find what has never been lost," Robert Gregory said, bitterly.
Miss Harmer faced round at once upon this new antagonist, as if glad to turn her face from the stern, searching look of the doctor. She and her sister had risen from their seats now, and none of the others had seated themselves. Father Eustace had moved across and taken his place by them, as if to support them by his presence; the others stood in a group together, with Dr. Ashleigh slightly in advance.
"As for you, sir," Miss Harmer broke out, addressing Robert Gregory—"as for you, as I have already told Dr. Ashleigh, I look upon you and the woman you call your wife, as the murderers of my brother; and now, having struck him down, and seeing him laid in his grave, you would fain come here to grasp at his property. Why do you come here to ask for his will? What is so likely as that, when he heard of that ungrateful girl's conduct, that conduct which gave him his deathblow, he tore his will into fragments?"
"But, Miss Harmer," Dr. Ashleigh said, in his quiet, firm voice, motioning Robert Gregory, who had advanced to reply to the attack upon him, to be silent. "But, Miss Harmer, we know that such was not the case; we know that he was found in the same position in which he was sitting when he received Sophy's letter. We know that he did not leave the room, and that no one entered it. We know that there were no fragments of paper scattered about, as there would in all probability have been had he destroyed the will in the way you suggest; and lastly, Miss Harmer," and here the doctor advanced a step nearer and spoke even more impressingly, "lastly, we know that such an intention was farthest from Mr. Harmer's mind; for that he began a letter, which is, or has been in your possession, a letter to Sophy expressing his full forgiveness. So that in your bitter anger against the poor girl, you are acting in direct contradiction to the dying words of your brother."
The two Misses Harmer and Father Eustace were evidently staggered by this attack. Miss Harmer's cheek, which had flushed up when she attacked Robert Gregory, turned deadly pale again, and she shrank back as if she had received a blow. She was a little time before she answered, and then the change of her voice showed how much she was unnerved: