Shocked at the sight of his distress, his sister had at first tried to comfort him. With a woman’s quick perception she had seen that Magdalen was the sorest part of all, and had said to him soothingly:
“It was by accident that Magdalen found it. She was greatly disturbed about it.”
This did not tally with her first statement, that “Magdalen had sought for it at intervals,” and Roger made a gesture for her to stop. So she sat watching him, and trembling a little, as she began dimly to see what the taking of Millbank from Roger would involve.
“Excuse me, Helen,” he said, with all his old courtesy of manner, as he wiped the sweat-drops from his beard. “Excuse me if, for a moment, I gave way to my feelings in your presence. It was so sudden, and there were so many sources of pain which met me at once, that I could not at first control myself. It was not so much the loss of my fortune. I could bear that—”
“Then you do not intend to contest the will?” Mrs. Walter Scott said.
It was a strange question for her to ask then, and she blushed as she did it; but she must know what the prospect was, while underlying her own selfish motives was a thought that if Roger did not mean to dispute the right with Frank, she would brave the displeasure of her son, and then and there pour balm into the wound, by telling Roger of her belief that he was, and always had been, preferred to Frank by Magdalen. But she was prevented from this by the abrupt entrance of Frank himself. He had heard that his mother was with Roger, and had hastened to the room, seeing at a glance that the blow had been given; that Roger had seen the will; and for a moment he stood speechless before the white face and the soft blue eyes which met him so wistfully as he came in. There was no reproach in them, only a dumb kind of pleading as if for pity, which touched Frank’s heart to the very core, and brought him to Roger’s side.
Roger was the first to speak. Putting out his hand to Frank, he tried to smile, and said:
“Forgive me, boy, for having kept you from your own so long. If I had believed for a moment that there was such a will, I would never have rested day or night till I had found it for you. I wish I had. I would far rather I had found it than—than——”
He could not say “Magdalen,” but Frank knew whom he meant, and, in his great pity for the wounded man, he was ready to give up everything to him but Magdalen. He must have her, but Roger should keep Millbank.
“I believe that I am more sorry than you can be that the will is found,” he said, still grasping Roger’s hand. “And I want to say to you now that I prefer you should keep the place just as you have done. There need be no change. Only give me enough to support myself and—and——”