"The dogs gave me courage. And was it not well I did bring them? How strange that I should have wished for them so strongly to-night! That time when he drew out the dagger!--my heart failed me then, and but for Spice what would have been the end of it?" She shudders. "And yet," she says, with sudden pa.s.sion, "even then I knew what I should have done. I had his pistol. I myself would have shot him, if the worst came to the worst. Oh, to think that that man may yet reign here in this dear old house, and supplant Nicholas!"

Her eyes fill with tears.

"He may not,--there is a faint chance,--but of course the t.i.tle is gone, as he has proved his birth beyond dispute."

"What could he have wanted? When I came in, he turned pale and levelled the pistol at me. I was frightened, but not much. When I desired him, he laid down the pistol directly, and then I seized it. And then----"

Her eyes fall upon the hearthrug. Half under the fender a small piece of crumpled paper attracts her notice. Still talking, she stoops mechanically and picks it up, smooths it, and opens it.

"Why, what is this?" she says, a moment later; "and what a curious hand!

Not a gentleman's surely."

"One of Thomas's _billet-doux_, no doubt," says Geoffrey, dreamily, alluding to the under-footman, but thinking of something else.

"No, no; I think not. Come here, Geoffrey; do. It is the queerest thing,--like a riddle. See!"

He comes to her and looks over her shoulder at the paper she holds. In an ugly unformed hand the following figures and words are written upon it,--

"7--4. Press top corner,--right hand."

This is all. The paper is old, soiled, and has apparently made large acquaintance with pockets. It looks, indeed, as if much travel and tobacco are not foreign to it. Geoffrey, taking it from Mona, holds it from him at full length, with amiable superciliousness, between his first finger and thumb.

"Thomas has plainly taken to hieroglyphics,--if it be Thomas," he says.

"I can fancy his pressing his young woman's right hand, but her 'top corner' baffles me. If I were Thomas, I shouldn't hanker after a girl with a 'top corner;' but there is no accounting for tastes. It really is curious, though, isn't it?" As he speaks he looks at Mona; but Mona, though seemingly returning his gaze, is for the first time in her life absolutely unmindful of his presence.

Slowly she turns her head away from him, and, as though following out a train of thought, fixes her eyes upon the panelled wall in front of her.

"It is illiterate writing, certainly; and the whole concern dilapidated to the last degree," goes on Rodney, still regarding the soiled paper with curiosity mingled with aversion. "Any objection to my putting it in the fire?"

"'7--4,'" murmurs she, absently, still staring intently at the wall.

"It looks like the production of a lunatic,--a very dangerous lunatic,--an _habitue_ of Colney Hatch," muses Geoffrey, who is growing more and more puzzled with the paper's contents the oftener he reads it.

"'Top corner,--right hand,'" goes on Mona, taking no heed of him, and speaking in the same low, mysterious, far-off tone.

"Yes, exactly; you have it by heart; but what does it mean, and what are you staring at that wall for?" asks he, hopelessly, going to her side.

"It means--the missing will," returns she, in a voice that would have done credit to a priestess of Delphi. As she delivers this oracular sentence, she points almost tragically towards the wall in question.

"Eh!" says Geoffrey, starting, not so much at the meaning of her words as at the words themselves. Have the worry and excitement of the last hour unsettled her brain!

"My dear child, don't talk like that," he says, nervously: "you're done up, you know. Come to bed."

"I sha'n't go to bed at all," declares Mrs. Geoffrey, excitedly. "I shall never go to bed again, I think, until all this is cleared up.

Geoffrey, bring me over that chair."

She motions impatiently with her hand, and Geoffrey, being compelled to it by her vehemence, draws a high chair close to that part of the wall that seems to have claimed her greatest attention.

Springing up on it, she selects a certain panel, and, laying one hand on it as if to make sure it is the one she wants, counts carefully six more from it to the next wall, and three from it to the floor. I think I have described these panels before as being one foot broad and two feet long.

Having a.s.sured herself that the panel selected is the one she requires, she presses her fingers steadily against the upper corner on the side farthest from the fire. Expectation lies in every line of her face, yet she is doomed to disappointment. No result attends her nervous pressure, but distinct defeat. The panel is inexorable. Nothing daunted, she moves her hand lower down, and tries again. Again failure crushes her; after which she makes one last attempt, and, touching the very uppermost corner, presses hard.

Success at last rests with her. Slowly the panel moves, and, sliding to one side, displays to view a tiny cupboard that for many years has been lost sight of by the Rodney family. It is very small, about half a foot in depth, with three small shelves inside. But, alas! these shelves are empty.

Geoffrey utters an exclamation, and Mona, after one swift comprehensive glance at the rifled cupboard, bursts into tears. The bitter disappointment is more than she can bear.

"Oh! it isn't here! He has stolen it!" cries she, as one who can admit of no comfort. "And I felt so sure I should find it myself. That was what he was doing when I came into the room. Ah, Geoffrey, sure you didn't malign him when you called him a thief."

"What has he done?" asks Geoffrey, somewhat bewildered and greatly distressed at her apparent grief.

"He has stolen the will. Taken it away. That paper you hold must have fallen from him, and contains the directions about finding the right panel. Ah! what shall we do now?"

"You are right: I see it now," says Geoffrey, whitening a little, "Warden wrote that paper, no doubt," glancing at the dirty bit of writing that has led to the discovery. "He evidently had his knowledge from old Elspeth, who must have known of this secret hiding-place from my great-grandfather. My father, I am convinced, knew nothing of it.

Here, on the night of my grandfather's death, the old woman must have hidden the will, and here it has remained ever since until to-night.

Yet, after all, this is mere supposition," says Geoffrey. "We are taking for granted what may prove a myth. The will may never been placed here, and he himself----"

"It _was_ placed here; I feel it, I know it," says Mona, solemnly, laying her hand upon the panel. Her earnestness impresses him. He wakes into life.

"Then that villain, that scoundrel, has it now in his possession," he says, quickly. "If I go after him, even yet I may come up with him before he reaches his home, and compel him to give it up."

As he finishes he moves towards the window, as though bent upon putting his words into execution at once, but Mona hastily stepping before him, gets between it and him, and, raising her hand, forbids his approach.

"You may compel him to murder you," she says, feverishly, "or, in your present mood, you may murder him. No, you shall not stir from this to-night."

"But--" begins he, impatiently, trying gently to put her to one side.

"I will not listen," she interrupts, pa.s.sionately. "I know how you both looked a while ago. I shall never forget it; and to meet again now, with fresh cause for hatred in your hearts, would be----No. There is crime in the very air of to-night."

She winds her arms, around him, seeing he is still determined to go, and, throwing back her head, looks into his face.

"Besides, you are going on a fool's errand," she says, speaking rapidly, as though to gain time. "He has reached his own place long ago. Wait until the morning, I entreat you, Geoffrey. I--" her lips tremble, her breath comes fitfully--"I can bear no more just now."

A sob escapes her, and falls heavily on Geoffrey's heart. He is not proof against a woman's tears,--as no true man ever is,--especially _her_ tears, and so he gives in at once.

"There, don't cry, and you shall have it all your own way," he says, with a sigh. "To-morrow we will decide what is to be done."

"To-day, you mean: you will only have to wait a few short hours," she says, gratefully. "Let us leave this hateful room," with a shudder. "I shall never be able to enter it again without thinking of this night and all its horrors."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

HOW MONA KEEPS HER OWN COUNSEL--AND HOW AT MIDDAY SHE RECEIVES A NOTE.

Sleep, even when she does get to bed, refuses to settle upon Mona's eyelids. During the rest of the long hours that mark the darkness she lies wide awake, staring upon vacancy, and thinking ceaselessly until