I found him alone: he was seated at the table, looking over a long roll of parchment. He was much displeased at the interruption, and reproved me in a stern voice for disobeying his positive orders; and, by way of conciliation, I repeated my errand.
"Tell that woman," he cried, in a voice hoarse with emotion, "that I will not see her! nor any one belonging to her."
"The mystery thickens," thought I. "What can all this mean?"
On re-entering the office, I found the old woman huddled up in her wet clothes, in the same dejected attitude in which I had left her. When I addressed her, she raised her head with a fierce, menacing gesture. She evidently mistook me for Mr. Moncton, and smiled disdainfully on perceiving her error. When I repeated his answer, it was received with a bitter and derisive laugh.
"He will not see me?"
"I have given you my uncle's answer."
"Uncle!" she cried, with a repetition of the same horrid laugh. "By courtesy, I suppose; I was not aware that there was another shoot of that accursed tree."
I gazed upon her like one in a dream. The old woman drew a slip of paper from her bosom, bidding me convey that to my worthy uncle, and ask him, in her name, "whether he, or his son, dared to refuse admittance to the bearer."
I took the billet from her withered hand, and once more proceeded to the study. As I passed through the passage, an irresistible impulse of curiosity induced me to glance at the paper, which was unsealed, and my eye fell upon the following words, traced in characters of uncommon beauty and delicacy:
"If Robert Moncton refuses to admit my claims, and to do me justice, I will expose his villainy, and his son's heartless desertion, to the world.