Roger had spoken thus on that summer morning, which seemed so long ago. Roger was honest; Roger was just; Roger would bid her take that dreadful paper to him, though total ruin was the result.
Twice Magdalen started for the dark opening under the roof and as often stopped suddenly, until at last, overcome with excitement and anguish, she crouched down upon the floor, and moaned piteously, “Oh, Roger, Roger, if you must be ruined, I wish it had fallen to the lot of some other one to ruin you. Was it for this you brought me here? for this you have been so kind to me? Oh, Roger, I cannot live to see you a beggar. Why was it done? What was it for?”
The words she uttered were not intelligible, and only her sobbing moans met Frank’s ear and sent him up the steep stairway to where she sat with her face buried in her lap and the fatal paper clutched firmly in her hand.
“Magdalen, what is it? What has happened to you?” Frank asked, and then Magdalen first became aware of his presence.
Uttering a low scream she struggled to her feet, and turned toward him a face the expression of which he never forgot, it was so full of pain and anguish, of terror and mute entreaty. There was no escape now, for he was there with her,—the heir, the supplanter of poor Roger. Heaven would not suffer her to hide it as she might have done if left alone a little longer. It had sent Frank to prevent the wrong, and she must do the right in spite of herself. Magdalen thought all this during the moment she stood confronting Frank,—then reaching toward him the soiled yellow paper, she whispered hoarsely:
“Take it, Frank. It is yours, all yours; but oh, be merciful to Roger.”
Mechanically Frank took the paper from her, and the next moment she was on her knees before him trying to articulate something about “Roger, poor Roger,” but failing in the effort. The sight of that paper in Frank’s hands, and knowing that with it he held everything which Roger prized so dearly, took sense and strength away, and she fainted at his feet.
Magdalen had found the will!
CHAPTER XXI.
FRANK AND THE WILL.
