Part 15 (1/2)
On the very night that Faynie had returned so unceremoniously there had been a most thrilling scene but an hour before between Mrs. Fairfax and her daughter.
Unable to sleep, Claire had wandered down to her late stepfather's library in search of a book.
She was not a little surprised to see her mother there--writing--at that late hour.
Her footsteps had made no sound on the thick velvet carpet, and she stole up to her side quite un.o.bserved, looking over her shoulder to see what interested her mother so deeply.
One--two---three--four--five minutes she stood there, fairly rooted to the spot, then a gasp of terror broke from her white lips, causing her mother to spring to her feet like a flash.
”Claire!” she exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely, trembling like an aspen leaf and clinging to the back of the nearest chair for support. ”How long have you been here?” she gasped.
”Quite--five--minutes,” whispered the girl.
”And you have seen--” The mother looked into the daughter's eyes fearfully, not daring to utter the words trembling on her lips.
”I saw you change the--the will!” whispered Claire, in a terror-stricken voice. ”I saw you erase with a green fluid, which must have been a most powerful chemical, the words of the will, 'to my daughter Faynie' in the sentence: 'I bequeath all of my estate, both personal and real,' and insert therein the words, 'my wife, Margaret' in place of 'my daughter Faynie.'”
The woman stepped forward and clutched the girl's arm.
”It was for your sake, Claire, that I did it,” she whispered, shrilly; ”he cut us off with almost nothing, giving all to that proud daughter Faynie of his. We would have had to step out into the world--beggars again. We know what it is to be poor--ay, in want; we could never endure it again--death would be easier for both of us.
”The will was drawn two years ago; I am confident that it is the latest--that there is no other. I took a desperate chance to do what I have done to-night--so cleverly that it could never be detected.
”A few strokes of the pen meant wealth or poverty for us, Claire. I am too old to face beggary after living a life of luxury. You will not betray me, Claire--you dare not, knowing that it was done for your sake, Claire.”
The girl was not naturally wicked; she had always had a great respect for the high-bred, beautiful Faynie--her stepfather's daughter by his first wife. There had been no discord between the two young girls.
Still, as her mother had said so emphatically, it was better that Faynie should step out of that lovely home a beggar than that they should lose it.
Claire quite agreed with her mother that Faynie must stay there for the present at all hazards; it would arouse such an uproar if she were thrust from that roof just then.
”If my father has expressed the desire that I shall stay here six months, I--I shall do so, even though it breaks my heart,” Faynie had said.
She kept her own apartments, refusing to come down to her meals, and Mrs. Fairfax humored this whim by ordering Faynie's meals served in her rooms.
In vain the old housekeeper expostulated with Faynie, urging her to come down at least to the drawing-room evenings, as she used to do.
Faynie shook her golden curls.
”It is no longer my home,” she would say, with bitter sobs; ”I am only biding my time here--the six months that I am in duty bound to remain--then I am going away--it does not matter where.”
The old housekeeper had tried in vain to coax from the girl the story of where she had been while away from home.
”That is my secret,” Faynie would say, with a burst of bitter tears; ”I shall never divulge it--until the hour I lie dying.”
CHAPTER XVII.
EVERY MAN TO HIS TRADE.
After the bogus Lester Armstrong had dispatched his letter of acceptance to Mrs. Fairfax he braced himself for what would happen next by taking a deep draught from the silver brandy flask which he kept in his breast pocket, though he realized that he had need of all his senses for any emergency.