“Yes,” she replied. “I put it there myself, the day your father died.”
“I told you so,” dropped from Mrs. Walter Scott’s lips; but Hester paid no heed to her.
She was looking at Roger, fascinated by the expression of his eyes and face as he went on to question her.
“Why did you hide it, and where did you find it?”
“It was lying on the table, where Aleck found him dead, spread out before him, as if he had been reading it over, as I know he had, and he meant to change it, too, for he’d asked young Schofield to come that night and fix it. Don’t you remember Schofield said so?”
Roger nodded, and she continued:
“And I know by another way that he meant to change it. ’Twas so writ in his letter to you.”
“His letter to me, Hester? There was nothing like that in the letter,” Roger exclaimed; and Hester continued:
“Not in the one I gave to you, I know. That he must have begun first, and quit, because he blotched it, or something. Any ways, there was another one finished for you, and in it he said he was goin’ to fix the will, add a cod-cil or something, because he said it was unjust.”
“Why did you withhold that letter from me, Hester, and where is it now?”