“Now suppose she makes this will and dies suddenly without having an opportunity to make another. What then? Her intention will not help us. This will holds, and we are left entirely without a dollar in the world. Now, what am I to do to save us? It is of no use to go to Mrs. Van Bartan. She is an iron woman. She has her plan, and Heaven could not change her in the least. I must do something. It all depends on me, and I don't know which way to turn. You must show me some way; you must do something.”
Randolph Mason turned around in his chair and looked squarely at the young woman.
“Madam,” he said, “you have neglected to tell me the most important matter.”
“Oh, no, sir,” responded the younger Mrs. Van Bartan, “I have told you everything.”
“By no means,” said Mason. “You have said that Mr. Van Bartan is not the man with whom you had hoped to spend your life. Who is that man?”
The young woman looked down at the floor and was silent.
“Well,” she said, “I don't know that I meant quite that. I was meaning, you know, that there were other considerations moving me to this alliance beyond mere affection. I did not say that I loved some one else, did I? Did I say I loved some one else?”
“You evade,” said Mason, bluntly. “It is the weakling's method of confession, and as well the fool's method.”
The blood came into the face of the younger Mrs. Van Bartan, and she looked up resolutely.
“You don't spare me at all,” she said, bitterly. “You pry out everything, even the very heart linings. Suppose I did love some one else, what has that to do with this matter? That is all over and past and gone. Can't I permit it to sleep and be forgotten? Suppose there was another man? Suppose there is now? Must I empty out his heart too? Can't I spare him? Can't I leave him out of this?”