Mr. Alden’s departure had left Floy alone, for Espy had not yet returned. Sinking down upon the sofa, she wept convulsively for some minutes. Presently she grew calmer, and, wiping away her tears, rose and went to her father’s writing-desk.
Seating herself before it, she selected a sheet of note-paper, took up a pen, and was in the act of dipping it in the ink, when Susan, the maid of all work, put her head in at the door, saying, “Mr. Crosby’s in the parlor, Miss Floy, asking to see you.”
“Thank you very much for coming,” Floy said when she had shaken hands with her visitor. “I was just about to write a note asking you to call.”
“I shall be glad if I can be of service to you,” he said. “I should have called sooner, but returned only last night from a pleasure-trip, the first I have taken in years. Now what can I do for you?”
Mr. Crosby, the first lawyer in the place, had been Mr. Kemper’s legal adviser.
At first Floy seemed unable to speak. She rose, and motioning Mr. Crosby to follow her, led the way to the room she had just left. They were closeted together there for an hour, in which Mr. Crosby learned the whole story of Mrs. Kemper’s death-bed revelations, and the unsuccessful search for the deed of gift and the will.
“I am extremely sorry to hear all this,” he said. “I was pretty certain there was no will, because Mr. Kemper had spoken to me about drawing one up for him, telling me that he intended leaving the bulk of his property to his wife and daughter, but not going sufficiently into particulars to enable me to write out the instrument without further instructions. These he delayed giving me from time to time, being always so much occupied with his business. If you were, as I always believed till now, his own child, the omission would make little or no difference; but as it is, it leaves you quite unprovided for. If I had known the truth I should have urged him strongly to attend to the matter without delay. It’s a bad business, a very bad business for you, Miss Floy! I feel for you from the bottom of my heart, and I would do anything in the world I could to help you.”
“I believe it, Mr. Crosby,” she said with emotion, “and if you will undertake—”
“To communicate with the heirs at law? Certainly; and I shall try to induce them to allow your claim to a share in the property you have so generously resigned to them—”
“Not generously, Mr. Crosby,” she interrupted, “only justly.”