"What does that mean?" she demanded, huskily.
"Never mind. Read on!" he commanded, hoarsely.
Then the papers found were described and copied, the will acting as a kind of supplement.
There was not a word spoken in that room for the space of five minutes when the reading had ceased.
Mr. Pryor was the first to break the stillness that had grown uncanny.
"Let me be the first to congratulate you, Lynde," he said, his kind old voice shaken with emotion. "You have gained your fortune at last, and if it has cost you a wife, the loss is the greater gain of the two."
"It is not true!" cried Lynde, hoarsely. "There is not a word of it that can be true. There was never any such will made. My uncle died, believing me guilty of the acts of which my cousin accused me, and Roger Pyne was never married in his life. Do you think that he could have had a wife and I not know it! Why, it would have been——"
He broke off suddenly, remembering the comments that had been made upon the resemblance between Edith and Leonie upon that night that they had sat side by side at the table.
It seemed to offer a certain proof of the truth of the story that startled him.
He arose hastily and picked up his hat.