"I cannot take this money," cried Edith, her face dull with despair. "I cannot--I cannot." She tore herself away from her husband and faced Brennan with the look of an animal at bay.

"Edith, my dear, are you losing your senses?" inquired Mrs. Pope.

"I cannot take it," repeated Mrs. Rogers, mechanically.

"Why not?" asked Donald. His question came like a blow.

She did not dare to tell him that--she clenched her hands until the blood came, looking at him in sudden confusion.

"Of course, it is a very large amount," he went on, "but if he wished it--"

"You are right, Donald." Mrs. Pope favored him with a smile which seemed almost genial, compared with those she usually bestowed upon him.

"Edith, my dear, it is your duty to respect the wishes of the dead.

Don't you think so, Mr. Brennan?"

"The will allows me no lat.i.tude, madam. Whatever your daughter's feelings in the matter may be, it is my duty as executor to turn over to her Mr. West's estate in its entirety. What disposition she may see fit to make of it afterward is, of course, no affair of mine." He turned and picked up his hat and coat from the chair where Donald had placed them.

"It will be desirable, Mrs. Rogers, for you to come to my office at your early convenience for a business consultation. There are some papers I shall want you to sign. If possible, I should be glad to have you come to-morrow--say at twelve o'clock."

"I--I tell you I don't want this money," faltered Edith. "I--I have no right to it--"

"Mr. Brennan has just explained to you, Edith, that the money is yours by law. He is obliged to turn it over to you. I can understand, of course, that it is a great surprise to you, but surely, if it was _his_ wish, there is no reason for you to feel so strongly about it." She fell to sobbing softly and, clutching at his arm, put her head upon it.

"Donald--oh, Donald!" she moaned.

"I think, Mr. Brennan," said Donald, turning to the lawyer, "that you can depend upon Mrs. Rogers coming in to see you at twelve to-morrow.

Good-night."

"Good-night," said the lawyer, as he bowed and left the room.

"Think of what this money will mean, Edith," exclaimed her mother, her face aglow with antic.i.p.ation, "to you--to Bobbie--to all of us." She looked at Alice with a joyful smile. "I guess we can have that cottage after all."

"Don't! Don't!" cried Edith. "My G.o.d, you don't realize what you are saying."

She swayed suddenly forward, overcome by the terrible strain of the past half-hour, and fell heavily to the floor.

CHAPTER XII

At twelve o'clock the following day, Edith Rogers entered the offices of Messrs. Gruber, McMillan, Brennan & Shaw, at Number 11 Wall Street, and asked to see Mr. Brennan. She was at once ushered into the latter's private office, and found him awaiting her.

This visit to Mr. Brennan's office was to Edith an ordeal that she greatly dreaded, and one that it had required all of her courage to face. All the night before she had lain awake, thinking about it, and even with the coming of the day her fears had not to any great extent left her.

For one thing, however, she felt thankful. Donald had, at the last moment, decided not to accompany her. At first he had insisted upon doing so, partly because of her unfamiliarity with business affairs, more because of her nervous and unstrung condition, the result of the terrible shock which the news of West's death had given her. She had done her best to conceal her sufferings, or at least so to modify them that Donald might have no suspicion of their real cause, and in this she had been more successful than she had supposed possible. After the first shock which Mr. Brennan's words had given her, she was conscious of a reaction, resulting in a sort of numbness, in which her mind was filled less with thoughts of the man she had supposed she loved than with a ghastly fear lest the fact of this love might become known to her husband.

Had she been able to a.n.a.lyze, during all the eternities of that horrible night, the cause of this fear, she might have realized that her love for West had been no love at all, but only a sudden infatuation, born of her overweening vanity and love for the good things of life on the one hand, and her utter failure to appreciate her husband's rugged honesty of purpose on the other. The very fact that her horror at the thought that Donald might learn of her affair with West overshadowed all else in her mind, might have told her that she still valued her husband's love and that of her child, far above that of the man who had so suddenly been taken away from her.

Donald, who sat beside her most of the night, was too generous, too unsuspicious a nature, to attribute her tears to anything but a very natural grief at the loss of a dear friend. He felt the matter keenly himself, but, man-like, strove to hide his own sufferings in order that he might the more readily comfort her.

Mrs. Pope and Alice had remained until midnight. They would have stayed longer, but Edith would not permit it. "I'm all right, mother," she said, choking back her tears. "Go home and get your rest. I'll see you to-morrow."

So the mother departed, accompanied by Alice. Her whole att.i.tude toward Edith seemed to have undergone a sudden transformation. The latter was now rich--the possessor of half a million dollars, and hence no longer to be criticised or blamed for having married a poor man. Even toward Donald her manner had changed. She addressed him as "my dearest boy,"

and threw out vague hints concerning Edith's and Bobbie's health and the sea air which they so greatly needed. Donald paid little attention to her. He recognized her shallow-souled adoration of money and secretly despised it.

It was after they had gone, and Edith had lain sobbing upon the bed for a long time, that Donald brought up the subject of her visit to Mr.

Brennan's office. "Perhaps I had better call him up in the morning and postpone it," he said. "Any other day will do. There is no hurry, and I'm afraid, dear, that you are hardly in a condition to discuss business matters."

"Oh--no--no. I'd better go and get it over with." She dried her eyes and sat up, looking at him, half-frightened. "I'll be all right in the morning. I'd better go."

"Very well, if you think best. Of course I shall go with you, and, really, the whole affair need not take long."

The thought that Donald was to be with her was terrifying. For a time she was afraid to speak. She did not know what Mr. Brennan might have learned about herself and West--what information might have come to him along with the dead man's papers and effects. Suppose Donald were to find out. She glanced at his careworn face, upon which the lines of suffering were set deep, and her heart smote her. He must never find out. After a time she spoke.

"I think, Donald, that perhaps I had better go alone."

"Why?" He seemed surprised.

"Oh--I can hardly say. Mr. Brennan might prefer it so. Don't you think it would look just a little--bad--for both of us to go--as though we were so anxious for poor--Billy's--money?" Her tears broke out afresh.

He regarded the idea as a foolish whim, born of her hysterical condition, but good-naturedly humored her. "I'm not at all anxious to go," he said. "Poor Billy--I don't want his money. I only suggested going with you because I thought you would rather not go alone. We can decide in the morning, however. You'd better lie down now, and try to get some sleep."

Edith began slowly to undress. As she did so, the letter from West, which she had been carrying about in her bosom all day, fell to the floor. Donald picked it up with a queer little smile and returned it to her. "Poor old Billy!" he murmured. "How strange, to think that we shall never see his handwriting again!"

The incident increased Edith's fears; the letter was filled with expressions of love, and Donald, unsuspecting, trusting her always, had not even asked to see it. She went into the kitchen on the plea of making a cup of tea, and burned the letter at the gas range, fearful every moment that he would come in and see what she was doing. There were many other similar letters, locked in a drawer of her bureau. She determined to destroy these as well, in the morning.

Later on, Donald slept, supposing that she was doing likewise, but she only made pretense, designed to hide her feelings. She sobbed softly to herself throughout the long hours till daybreak, but morning found her dry-eyed, ready to face whatever disaster the day might bring.

Mr. Brennan was standing behind his broad mahogany table-desk, his eyegla.s.ses in one hand, the other grasping a package. Edith, in her agitation, did not observe the latter. She sank into a big leather-covered chair and looked at the lawyer expectantly.

He pushed some papers across the desk to her and requested her to sign them. She did so, without reading them, or knowing what they were. These formalities completed, he drew the package, which appeared to contain a large number of letters, toward him and began to tap it in gently emphatic fashion with his eyegla.s.ses.

"There is a certain matter, Mrs. Rogers, about which I must speak to you," he began, after a long contemplation of the letters.

"Yes?" she answered, with a rising inflection. Something in his manner warned her that what he was about to say would concern her very deeply.

"When Mr. West died, his papers and other effects were forwarded to me, as executor of the estate. Among them I find these letters." He indicated the package on the desk before him.

"Yes!" she repeated, her heart sinking. A cold perspiration broke out all over her. She wiped her lips with the ineffective bit of lace which she held crushed in her hand.

Brennan reached over, took up the bundle of letters, and handed it to her. He knew from the handwriting, from the initials with which they were signed, from all the attendant circ.u.mstances, that she had written them. "As executor of the estate, Mrs. Rogers," he said slowly, "I feel that the best use I can make of these letters is to turn them over to you."

For a moment she hardly grasped his meaning. His grave manner of speaking had made her believe that some terrible fate overhung her--some mysterious requirement of the law which she did not realize, or understand. Now, since it appeared that the only disposition of the letters that Brennan intended to make was to hand them over to her, she could scarcely believe that she had understood him aright. "You--you mean that I am to--to take them?" she said haltingly.

"Yes. Take them, and, madam, if you will permit me to advise you, I strongly recommend that you lose no time in destroying them."

The color flew to her cheeks at his tone, implying as it did the guilty nature of the correspondence. It terrified her to think that this man had it in his power to destroy her utterly, merely by saying a few words to her husband. Yet he could not have any such intention, else why should he advise her to destroy the evidence of her folly, her guilt?

She took the letters with trembling fingers and thrust them into her handbag. "I will destroy them at once," she said faintly, but very eagerly, hardly daring to look at him.