If Jacob Herapath himself had suddenly appeared before her in that quiet room, the girl could scarcely have felt more keenly the strange and subtle fear which seized upon her as she realized that what she was staring at was probably some message to herself. It was some time before she dared to lay hands on this message—when at last she took the letter out of the box her fingers trembled so much that she found a difficulty in opening the heavily-sealed envelope. But she calmed herself with a great effort, and carrying the half-sheet of note-paper, which she drew from its cover, over to the window, lifted it in the fading light and read the few lines which Jacob Herapath had scrawled there.
“If anything ever happens suddenly to me, my will, duly executed and witnessed by Mr. Tertius and Mr. Frank Burchill, is in a secret drawer of my old bureau which lies behind the third small drawer on the right-hand side.
“Jacob Herapath.”
That was all—beyond a date, and the date was a recent one. “If anything ever happens suddenly”—had he then felt some fear, experienced any premonition, of a sudden happening? Why had he never said anything to her, why?
But Peggie realized that such questions were useless at that time—that time was pre-eminently one of action. She put the letter back in the rosewood box, took the box in her arms, and carrying it off to her own room, locked it up in a place of security. And that had scarcely been done when Kitteridge came seeking her and bringing with him a card: Mr. Frank Burchill’s card, and on it scribbled a single line: “Will you kindly give me a few minutes?”
Peggie considered this request in one flash of thought, and turned to the butler.
“Where is Mr. Burchill?” she asked. “In the study? Very well, I will come down to him in a few minutes.”
She made a mighty effort to show herself calm, collected, and indifferent, when she presently went down to the study. But she neither shook hands with the caller, nor asked him to sit; instead she marched across to the hearthrug and regarded him from a distance.
“Yes, Mr. Burchill?” she said quietly. “You wish to see me?”
She looked him over steadily as she spoke, and noted a certain air of calm self-assurance about him which struck her with a vague uneasiness. He was too easy, too quiet, too entirely businesslike to be free from danger. And the bow which he gave her was, to her thinking, the height of false artifice.