"You proud thing! I tell you now that if you had consented to have me at first you should now have half of all father Alvord's property as well as mine; but I have outwitted you. I got him to make his will as he did, and thanks to John's blundering, I knew when he made the other; and now, as there's no witness here, I'll leave you to guess what became of it; and you may groan in poverty for all me, for you'll have to sue me every time you get any more money out of the estate."
He had hardly ejaculated these words, in anger, before he seemed to see his error, and as Margaret, now understanding his villany, tore herself from his grasp, and rushed into another room, he followed her, and tried to laugh away the effect of what he had said.
"Ho! ho! Margaret, haven't I told you a pretty story though? I wish it had been true, I declare; but I must tell you that I never believed a word about the second will. You must have been mistaken, and as to the first, father and Emerson, the old lawyer, got it up without my knowledge."
Margaret, who now began to see into his real character, and who hated hypocrisy, turned upon him, and said, "There's no occasion for you adding falsehood to your rudeness, sir. Father made that will under your direction, in my opinion, and as for the last will, you do believe that it existed, and I see now that you probably abstracted it, and I wish I could never see your face again till you can come prepared to prove that you did not. Good day, sir," and she attempted to pass by him.
But he put himself in her way, and said she shouldn't stir a step till she took back those words.
"I have spoken what I feel must be the truth, and I will not retract a word," said she; "and you must let me pass, or I will call in John. There he is," said she, pointing through the window at John, but a short distance off. The mild, quiet face of Margaret must have assumed great firmness then, for Floramond looked but once into her eyes, and stepped aside; and as she passed, exclaimed,—
"You shall live to rue this, to your full satisfaction."
And she did suffer. Floramond managed to vex her in many ways,—sold off a portion of her garden, on which she depended for her vegetables, contending that it was only the rent of the house that was left her by the will; and sending her ten dollars on her annuity when she wanted perhaps thirty or forty; and getting up stories about her extravagance, etc. But, fortunately, she had a character and reputation formed, and he could only vex her in money matters to any great extent.
Weary months passed, and Margaret frequently thought of the wills, and what Floramond had said; and when the ministerial brother called to see her one day, about the time his hundred-dollar annuity "for a rental" was running out, Margaret told him something of her troubles, and her conviction that Floramond had stolen the will. The minister was not very astute in law matters, but he could see that it would only be by a "sort of miracle," as he told her, that they could ever learn anything of what had become of the will; but Margaret was more hopeful, and continued to plan ways of getting at the truth.
'There was that old lawyer who had drawn the first will. May be he could find out something,—lawyers work for the side that employs them;' but the minister dampened her ardor in that direction, by telling her that Floramond probably held him under a general retainer, and he could not be reached; but finally Margaret was so anxious to have something done, that the minister consented to aid her to the extent of his little ability, as he was modestly pleased to say, and at last it came into his head that when he was once supplying for a few weeks a classmate's pulpit in Brooklyn, he had one evening heard one of the congregation telling some marvelous stories about the adroitness and sagacity of detective officers, and he spoke to Margaret of this.