Then the cleverness of the old woman’s plot began to seep into her mind. All unwittingly Martin Howe was made a party in a diabolical scheme to defraud her—the woman who loved him—of her birthright, of the home that should have been hers.
The only way he could restore to her what 257 was her own was to marry her, and to do that he must perform the one deed he had pledged himself never to be tempted into: he must rebuild the wall. Otherwise the property would pass into other hands.
Nothing could so injure the Howe estate as to have a poor farm next door. Ellen of course knew that. Ah, it was a vicious document—that last Will and Testament of Ellen Webster.
Mr. Benton’s voice broke in upon Lucy’s musings.
“The deceased,” he added with a final grin of appreciation, “appoints Mr. Elias Barnes as executor, he being,” the lawyer quoted from the written page, “the meanest man I know.”
Thus did the voice of the dead speak from the confines of the grave! Death had neither transformed nor weakened the intrepid hater. From her aunt’s coffin Lucy could seem to hear vindictive chuckles of revenge and hatred, and a mist gathered before her eyes.
She had had no regrets for the loss of Ellen’s body; but she could not but lament with genuine grief the loss of her soul.