Deborah bowed in silence; her instinctive thoughts uttered 'Hypocrite!'
'Mistress Fleming,' continued the lawyer, still uneasy under that steady gaze, but still overflowing with polite urbanity and humble deference, 'I, as the sole executor of the late Adam Sinclair' (and his countenance lengthened visibly and his eyelids fell), 'have the pleasure of informing you that "Deborah Fleming" is left by his will the sole inheritor of all his property, landed and personal, unconditionally and without reserve.'
There was silence for a moment; Deborah had started and then kept still and calm, while first a great horror of the dead man's gold, and then thoughts of her father and brother and Enderby, coursed through her startled mind. In that moment the lawyer Parry shot one furtive glance from his crafty eyes, and perceived her deep in abstracted thought; and marvelled at her coolness and dignity, little guessing the combative thoughts that were surging in her breast.
'This was generous of Master Sinclair,' said Deborah. 'You have something else to tell me?' She turned her eyes on him. He fidgeted; he avoided her gaze; he looked down, he looked out on the sky, he looked up at the carved chimney-piece, where grotesque faces grinned down at him; he looked anywhere but at Deborah. It was but a slight tremor, a slight hesitation, only very quick eyes would have discerned it, under the flow of ready words: 'Yes, Mistress Fleming; it relates to your brother, Master Charles Fleming; and though it is a proof sure and convincing that will clear him from a foul aspersion which has incidentally (incidentally, mind you) come to my knowledge; at the same time—and with deep reluctance I say it—it shews Master Sinclair in ill colours, and casts bitter blame on his memory. But mark, Mistress Fleming; Master Sinclair was my oldest friend, my benefactor; what I tell you now, I tell you in confidence, and the secret had best perish between your family and myself. But first I will shew what I mean.' He then drew some papers from a bag, and spread them before Deborah's eyes, with his hands upon them. 'See, see!' he muttered, apparently trembling with sudden excitement, 'what Adam Sinclair and his myrmidons have done! And to get you in his power, Mistress Fleming! All to win your favour! I swear it, for I discovered them in the act! This writing you would say is your brother's? There too is his signature. But I hereby swear it to be a base forgery, and no more Master Fleming's writing than it is mine. This was a plot to throw dust in Sir Vincent's eyes, and disgrace on his son's name, by proving that Master Fleming had secretly raised money on this estate.'
'I know it—I know it all,' said Deborah, very white and calm. 'Cannot you tell me who wrote this?' And she laid her finger on her brother's name, and fixed her clear eyes upon the wrinkled crafty being before her, till they seemed to read his soul.
'I cannot inform you of that, Mistress Fleming,' he answered with sorrowful regret, and looked away, and up at the grinning faces that seemed to mock him, so that he glanced quickly away from them again.
'You are generous,' said Deborah; but a look of unutterable disdain was clouding those clear eyes with passion and with scorn. 'You will tell me thus far, but no further, not even this creature's name. Why, I would give all my new possessions, Master Parry, just to bring him to justice for this. But what is your purpose in bringing this paper to me? Am I to buy it of you, as Master Sinclair would have done, had not death taken him? I heard your name and his in connection with this matter; no other.'
Master Parry wished himself away from Enderby, and well out of it all, with a heavy purse. 'Mistress Fleming,' he said, 'what you suspect, or what charge you would bring against me, I know not. I only swear to you that I got possession of this paper by great and grievous trouble, and no small exercise of talent. The villain's name who compassed this forgery I cannot divulge; but if ye would shield the dead man's memory, save the honour of your name, and that of your father and brother, and prevent this paper for ever from seeing light—take it of me.'
'Ye do trade on it then?' said Deborah, still with those eyes and lips of ineffable disdain.
'Mistress Fleming, another trades with me,' answered the man of law, with a semblance of grave and dignified reproof and a glance of injured innocence. 'I have suffered much already in this cause, and small thanks I get. If I am not well paid therefore, this paper must go back to the owner, and he makes it public. If I am well paid, it is mine—it is yours—to burn, to do with it what you will.'