"However that may be," returned the other immovably, "'t wa'n't you that did it. 'Twas your Cousin Mary."
"Oh – was it? Oh, indeed?" responded Mrs. Fabian, slipping back her furs still further. Eliza Brewster's disagreeable manner was making her nervous. "Yes, I believe Mrs. Sidney was with us on her wedding-trip just at that time. Mr. Fabian and I have just returned from visiting Mrs. Sidney out in her wild mountain home."
Eliza's eyes roved involuntarily to two blank sheets of board standing on the mantelpiece; but she was silent.
"Do you know the contents of Aunt Mary's will, Eliza?" asked Mrs. Fabian, after waiting vainly for an inquiry as to her cousin's well-being.
"I do."
"What do you think of it?"
"That don't matter, does it?"
A streak of light illumined Mrs. Fabian's annoyance. Ah, that was what was the matter with Eliza. After twenty-five years of faithful service, she had expected to inherit her mistress's few hundreds. Full explanation, this, of the present sullenness. The disappointment must, indeed, have been bitter.
Mrs. Fabian felt an impulse of genuine sympathy. She knew the singular loneliness of Eliza's situation; knew that she had no near kin, and the transplanting from the island home had been complete. What an outlook now, was Eliza Brewster's!
"Perhaps the will was as much of a surprise to you as it was to the rest of us," Mrs. Fabian went on. "The Sidneys were amazed. They didn't tell me just how much Aunt Mary left young Mr. Sidney. Do you know?"
"Yes," replied Eliza promptly.
And again Mrs. Fabian looked at her interrogatively. As well question the Sphinx. She comprehended the stony closing of the thin lips. There might be a combination which would make them open, but she did not have it. She shrugged her fine-cloth shoulders. "Oh, well, it doesn't matter. It must have been very little, anyway."
She sighed. She must get at her business, though she dreaded absurdly to introduce it. "Well, Eliza, if you will take me to Aunt Mary's room, I will go through her belongings. It is always the most painful duty connected with a death, but it cannot be escaped."
Eliza stared at her, speechless.
"Aunt Mary had a few very nice things," went on Mrs. Fabian. She tried to smile as at a loving memory. "The regulation treasures of a dear old lady, – her diamond ring, a diamond brooch, and a camel's hair shawl – My heavens!" cried the visitor, interrupting herself suddenly with a shriek of terror. "Take it away! Take it away!"
She clung to the back of her chair; for Pluto, silent as a shadow, had sprung upon the ends of her pelerine as they lay in her lap and was daintily nosing the fur, while perilously grasping its richness, his eyes glowing with excitement. Eliza rose, and sweeping him into one arm resumed her seat.
"Oh, how that frightened me!" Mrs. Fabian panted and looked angrily at the animal with the jetty coat and abbreviated tail, whose eyes, live emeralds, expanded and contracted as they glowed still upon the coveted fur.
If she expected an apology, none came. Eliza's pale face showed no emotion. Endurance was written in every line.
"To be interrupted at such a critical moment!" Mrs. Fabian felt it was unbearable.
"Let me see" – she began again with a little laugh. "Your pet knocked everything out of my head, Eliza. Oh, yes, I was saying that I will look over Aunt Mary's things now."
She rose as she spoke. Eliza kept her seat.
"You can't do that, Mrs. Fabian."
"I certainly shall, Eliza Brewster. What do you mean?"
"I mean that they're mine. She left 'em all to me."
The speaker struggled to control the trembling of her lips.
The visitor looked the limp black alpaca figure over, haughtily.
"Aunt Mary left you her diamond ring, her diamond brooch, and her camel's hair shawl?" she asked sceptically.
"She left her diamond brooch to her namesake, Mrs. Sidney. I sent it to her a week ago."
"Then, since you know Aunt Mary's wishes, what did she leave me? The ring?"
"No, ma'am!"
"The shawl?"
"No, ma'am."
Mrs. Fabian's nostrils dilated.
"My aunt's poor trifles are nothing to me, of course, except for sentiment's sake," she said haughtily.
Eliza bowed her bitter face over Pluto's fur.
"I am quite sure, however, that she did not pass away without some mention of me, – her sister's child."
"She did, though, Mrs. Fabian. If it's a keepsake you want," added Eliza drily, "you may have the paper-cutter. It's never been out o' the box."
The visitor, still standing, eyed the other with compressed lips before she spoke: —
"I have told you that I don't consider you responsible to-day. You are half-crazed, and I'm sorry for you. Answer me this, however, and mind, I shall verify your words by a visit to Mrs. Ballard's lawyer. Did my aunt leave you, legally, all her personal possessions?"
"She did."
Mrs. Fabian maintained another space of silence, gazing at the seated figure, whose gown looked rusty behind the polished lynx-black pressed against it. There was no mistaking the truth in the pale, wretched eyes.
"Disappointed about the money, though, and taking out her ill temper on me," thought the visitor.
To Eliza's increased heaviness of heart, the lady resumed her seat.
"Aunt Mary's death was sudden and unexpected and that explains her not speaking of me," she said; "but I know it would please her that I should use something that she had owned. I remember that shawl as being a very good one. It came to her from some of her husband's people. I'll buy that of you, Eliza."
"Will you?" returned the other, and Pluto emitted an indignant yowl and tried to leap from the tightening hold.
"Don't you let him go, Eliza!" cried Mrs. Fabian in a panic. "He's crazy about my fur. They always are. – Yes, the shawl is of no use to you and the money will be. It is so fine, it would be wicked to cut it into a wrap. I shall spread it on my grand piano."
Silence, while Eliza struggled still to control the trembling lips, and Pluto twisted to escape her imprisoning arm.
"I'm willing to give you twenty-five dollars for that shawl."
Mrs. Fabian waited, and presently Eliza spoke: —
"It ain't enough," she said, against her impeding breath.
"Fifty, then. We all feel grateful to you."
"Mrs. Fabian," Eliza sat up in her chair as if galvanized and looked her visitor in the eyes, while she spoke with unsteady solemnity, "the price o' that shawl is one million dollars."
The visitor stared at the shabby figure with the grey, unkempt locks, then shrugged her shoulders with a smile. "You'll come to your senses, Eliza," she said. "Some day that fifty dollars will look very good to you. I'll hold the offer open – "
"Likewise," added Eliza, breaking in upon her words with heightened voice, but the same deliberation, "that is the price of each handkerchief she left me, and each one of her little, wornout slippers, and her – "
She could get no further. She choked. Mrs. Fabian rose; Pluto, with another cry and a supreme writhe, tore himself from his iron prison.
The visitor shuddered, and looked at him fearfully, as his eager eyes seemed to threaten her. She hastened precipitately toward the door.
Eliza, putting the utmost constraint upon herself, rose and ushered her out.
Mrs. Fabian