"Mr. Carter," said Dr. Lavendar, "certain remarks of yours on our way up here made me apprehensive. I see that my friend, Mrs. Gray, is also—apprehensive. I would suggest that you have a few words with her alone. I will leave you."
"No," Rebecca said; "hear the end of it." Her hard face was red and hot. "Why does Mr. Urquhart leave the child of Robert Gray £5000? Why?"
"It is as I think you surmise, madam," John Carter said, gravely.
Rebecca recoiled, with a broken exclamation of horror.
Dr. Lavendar drew in his breath. "Oh, my poor Robert!" he said.
"It is so stated in the will," the lawyer went on; "there is no disguising it; nor, as far as I can see, can it be hidden from the legatee. The directions for finding this heir make the thing explicit. The testator states that he received information of the expected birth of his child after the marriage of the person in question, who did not mention her married name—hence our difficulty in tracing her."
Rebecca, her eyes narrowing into a cruel smile, sat down and rocked backward and forward in her chair.
"Dreadful—dreadful—dreadful!" she said, aloud, exultantly.
V.