“I am speaking, I think, to Mrs. Gordon Grant?” he said.
Miss Bethune was alone. She had many things to think of, and very likely the book which she seemed to be reading was not much more than a pretence to conceal her thoughts. It fell down upon her lap at these words, and she looked at her questioner with a gasp, unable to make any reply.
“Mrs. Gordon Grant, I believe?” he said again, then made a step farther into the room. “Pardon me for startling you, there is no one here. I am a solicitor, John Templar, of Gray’s Inn. Precautions taken with other persons need not apply to me. You are Mrs. Gordon Grant, I know.”
“I have never borne that name,” she said, very pale. “Janet Bethune, that is my name.”
“Not as signed to a document which is in my possession. You will pardon me, but this is no doing of mine. You witnessed Mrs. Bristow’s will?”
She gave a slight nod with her head in acquiescence.
“And then, to my great surprise, I found this name, which I have been in search of for so long.”
“You have been in search of it?”
“Yes, for many years. The skill with which you have concealed it is wonderful. I have advertised, even. I have sought the help of old friends who must see you often, who come to you here even, I know. But I never found the name I was in search of, never till the other day at the signing of Mrs. Bristow’s will—which, by the way,” he said, “that young fellow might have signed safely enough, for he has no share in it.”
“Do you mean to say that she has left him nothing—nothing, Mr. Templar? The boy that was like her son!”