Magdalen had, at last, asked to see Frank. She had made up her mind, and insisted upon being dressed, and meeting him in her little sitting-room, which opened from her chamber.
“Do you feel quite equal to the task?” Mrs. Walter Scott had said, kissing and caressing the poor girl, whose face was deathly pale, save where the fever spots burned upon her cheeks. “You don’t know how beautiful you look,” she continued, as she wrapped the shawl around Magdalen, and then, with another kiss, went in quest of Frank.
No one had seen him except Celine, who remembered having met him in the little passage leading to the garret stairs.
“He was there yesterday and the day before,” she said, and then passed on, never dreaming of all which was to follow those few apparently unimportant words.
“That is a strange place for Frank to visit every day,” Mrs. Walter Scott thought, and, curious to know why he was there, she, too, started for the garret. She always stepped lightly, and her soft French slippers scarcely made a sound as she went up the stairs. Frank’s back was toward her, and she advanced so cautiously that she stood close behind him before he was aware of her presence. She saw the soiled paper he held in his hand, read a few words, and then uttered a cry of exultation, which started Frank to his feet, where he stood confronting her, his face as white as marble, and his eyes blazing with excitement. His mother was scarcely less pale than himself, and her eyes were fixed on his with an unflinching gaze.
“Ah!” she said, and in that single interjection was embodied all the cruel exultation and delight and utter disregard for Roger, and defiance of the world, which the cold, hard woman felt.
Anon there broke about her mouth a peculiar kind of smile, which showed her glittering teeth, and made Frank draw back from her a step or two, while he held the paper closer in his hand, and farther away from her. She saw the motion, and there was something menacing in her attitude as she went close to him, and whispered,—
“I was right, after all. There was another Will, which somebody hid. Where did you find it?”
“Magdalen found it,” Frank involuntarily rejoined, mentally cursing himself for his stupidity when it was too late.
“Magdalen found it? And is that what ails her? Let me see it, please.”