'Tell me first,' said Caroline, trembling.
Then Babie told how she had wakened and seen Janet with the desk part raised up, reading something, and how, when she lay watching and wondering, Janet had shut it up and gone away. 'And I did not feel comfortable about it, mother,' said Babie, 'so I thought I would lock up the davenport, so that nobody could get at it.'
'You did not see her take anything away?'
'No, I can't at all tell,' said Babie. 'Is anything gone?'
'A book I valued very much. Some memoranda of your father were in that desk, and I cannot find them now. You cannot tell, I suppose, whether she was reading letters or a book?'
'It was not letters,' said Babie, 'but I could not see whether it was print or manuscript. Mother, I think she must have taken it to read and could not put it back again because I had hidden the davenport. Oh! I wish I hadn't, but I couldn't ask any one, it seemed such a wicked, dreadful fancy that she could meddle with your papers.'
'You acted to the best of your judgment, my dear,' said Caroline. 'I ought never to have let it out of my own keeping.'
'Do you think it was lost in the bag, mother?'
'I hope not. That would be worst of all!' said Caroline. 'I must ask Janet. Don't say anything about it, my dear. Let me think it over.'
When Caroline recollected Janet's attempt, as related by Robert, to break open her bureau, she had very little doubt that the book was there. It could not have been lost in the bag, for, as she remembered, reference had been made to it when Janet had extorted permission to go to Zurich, and she had warned her that even these studies would not be a qualification for the possession of the secret. Janet had then smiled triumphantly, and said she would make her change her mind yet; had looked, in fact, very much as Bobus did when he put aside her remonstrances. It was not the air of a person who had lost the records of the secret and was afraid to confess, though it was possible she might have them in her own keeping. Caroline longed to search the bureau, but however dishonourably Janet might have acted towards herself, she could not break into her private receptacles without warning. So after some consideration, she made Barbara drive her to the station, and send the following telegraphic message to Janet's address at Edinburgh:-
'Come home at once. Father's memorandum book missing. Must be searched for.'
All that day and the next the sons wondered what was amiss with their mother, she was so pensive, with starts of flightiness. Allen thought she was going to have an illness, and Bobus that it was a very strange and foolish way of taking his resistance, but all the time Armine was going about quite unperceiving, in a blissful state. The vicar's sister, a spirited, active, and very winning woman of thirty-five, had captivated him, as she did all the lads of the parish. He had been walking about with her, being introduced to all the needs of the parish, and his enthusiastic nature throwing itself into the cause of religion and beneficence, which was in truth his congenial element; he was ready to undertake for himself and his mother whatever was wanted, without a word of solicitation, nay rather, the vicar, who thought it all far too good to be true, held him back.
And when he came in and poured out his narrative, he was, for the first time in his life, even petulant that his mother was too much preoccupied to confirm his promises, and angry when Allen laughed at his vehemence, and said he should beware of model parishes.
By dinner-time the next day Janet had actually arrived. She looked thin and sharp, her keen black eyes roamed about uneasily, and some indescribable change had passed over her. Her brothers told her study had not agreed with her, and she did not, as of old, answer tartly, but gave a stiff, mechanical smile, and all the evening talked in a woman-of-the-world manner, cleverly, agreeably, not putting out her prickles, but like a stranger, and as if on her guard.
Of course there was no speaking to her till bedtime, and Caroline at first felt as if she ought to let one night pass in peace under the home roof; but she soon felt that to sleep would be impossible to herself, and she thought it would be equally so to her daughter without coming to an understanding. She yearned for some interchange of tenderness from that first-born child from whom she had been so long separated, and watched and listened for a step approaching her door; till at last, when the maid was gone and no one came, she yielded to her impulse; and in her white dressing-gown, with softly- slippered feet, she glided along the passage with a strange mixed feeling of maternal gladness that Janet was at home again, and of painful impatience to have the interview over.
She knocked at the door. There was no answer. She opened it. There was no one there, but the light on the terrace below, thrown from the windows of the lower room, was proof to her that Janet was in her sitting-room, and she began to descend the private stairs that led down to it. She was as light in figure and in step as ever, and her soft slippers made no noise as she went down. The door in the wainscot was open, and from the foot of the stairs she had a strange view. Janet's candle was on the chair behind her, in front of it lay half-a-dozen different keys, and she herself was kneeling before the bureau, trying one of the keys into the lock. It would not fit, and in turning to try another, she first saw the white figure, and started violently at the first moment, then, as the trembling, pleading voice said, 'Janet,' she started to her feet, and cried out angrily-
'Am I to be always spied and dogged?'
'Hush, Janet,' said her mother, in a voice of grave reproof, 'I simply came to speak to you about the distressing loss of what your father put in my charge.'
'And why should I know anything about it?' demanded Janet.
'You were the last person who had access to the davenport,' said her mother.
'This is that child Barbara's foolish nonsense,' muttered Janet to herself.
'Barbara has nothing to do with the fact that I sent you the key of the davenport where the book was. It is now missing. Janet, it is bitterly painful to me to say so, but your endeavours to open that bureau privately have brought suspicion upon you, and I must have it opened in my presence.'
'I have a full right to my own bureau.'
'Of course you have; but I had these notes left in my trust. It is my duty towards your father to use every means for their recovery.'
'You call it a duty to my father to shut up his discovery and keep it useless for the sake of a lot of boys who will never turn it to profit.'
'Of that I am judge. My present duty is to recover it. Your conduct is such as to excite suspicion, and I therefore cannot allow you to take anything out of that bureau except in my presence, till I have satisfied myself that his memoranda are not there. I would not search your drawers in your absence, and therefore telegraphed for you.'
'Thank you. Since you like to treat your daughter like a maidservant, you may go on and search my boxes,' said Janet, sulkily.
'I beg your pardon, my poor child, if I am unjustly causing you this humiliation,' said Caroline humbly, as Janet sullenly flumped down into a chair without answering. She took up the keys that Janet had brought with her, and tried them one by one, where Janet had been using them. The fourth turned in the lock, and the drawer was open!
'I will disarrange nothing unnecessarily,' said Caroline. 'Look for yourself.'
Janet would not, however, move hand, foot, or eye, while her mother put in her hand and took out what lay on the top. It was the Magnum Bonum. She held it to the light and was sure of it; but she had taken up an envelope at the same time, and her eye fell on the address as she was laying it down. It was to-'James Barnes, Esq.' And as her eye caught the pencilled words 'My Will,' a strange electric thrill went through her, as she exclaimed, 'What is this, Janet? How came it here?'
'Oh! take it if you like,' said Janet. 'I put it there to spare you worry; but if you will pursue your researches, you must take the consequences.'
Caroline, thus defied, still instinctively holding Magnum Bonum close to her, drew out the contents of the envelope, and caught in the broken handwriting of the old man, the words-'Will and Testament- George Gould- Wakefield-Elvira de Menella--whole estate.' Then she saw signature, seal, witnesses-date, 'April 24th, 1862.'
'What is this? Where did it come from?' she asked.
'I found it-in his table drawer; I saw it was not valid, so I kept it out of the way from consideration for you,' said Janet.
'How do you know it was not valid?'
'Oh-why-I didn't look much, or know much about it either,' said Janet, in an alarmed voice. 'I was a mere child then, you know. I saw it was only scrawled on letter-paper, and I thought it was only a rough draft, which would
