The old lady had changed much since Polly had seen her a year before; she had aged wonderfully, and was evidently breaking fast; her cheeks had fallen in, her face was wrinkled, and her whole figure was thinner and feebler than before; her hands, too, which had before been plump and well shaped—and upon which, if Angela Harmer had a single thought of personal vanity, she rather prided herself—were thin and bony, unmistakably the hands of an old woman.
As Polly Ashleigh was announced and entered, Angela Harmer half rose, with an exclamation almost of terror, and looked round with a wild, frightened look, as if seeking some outlet of escape; but there was none, and even had there been she could not have availed herself of it, for her knees gave way under her, and she sank down with a scared, helpless look, into the chair from which she had half risen.
Polly raised her veil, and looked down with a rather heightened colour, but with a steady look, at the cowering old woman before her, and then said, "You are surprised to see me here, Miss Harmer; and you well may be; for myself—had it been to make me the richest woman in the world—would not have set foot as a petitioner within the walls; but on behalf of my sister, I would do this and much more."
"What do you want, Miss Ashleigh?" Angela Harmer said, in hurried, anxious tones. "You must not talk to me; you must see my sister; she is more able to talk upon business than I am."
"I do not go to your sister, Miss Harmer, because I know my errand would then be a fruitless one. I come to you in her absence, because from what I know and have heard of you, I believe that your heart is accessible to impulses of kindness and pity; I come to you because I believe you to have been a mere passive participator in the wrong which others have committed."
"What do you want?" again Miss Harmer asked, in the same frightened, helpless way.
"I ask at your hands my sister's life—Miss Harmer, she is dying; do you know why? She was happy, she was loved; and was engaged to a man worthy of her, and they would before this have been married. But this man is dependent upon another, and that other's consent was only given for him to wed an heiress; my sister is an heiress no longer. This man would gladly take her penniless as she is, take her to the ruin of his worldly prospects, but she cannot accept the sacrifice; and she is dying—dying; do you hear that, Miss Harmer? And you are assuredly her murderess,—far, far more so than you allege Sophy to have been of your brother; for he was an old man, suffering from a deadly malady, by which he might at any moment have been carried off, while this is a fair, young, happy girl, whom you have struck down. She is dying;—Miss Harmer, I demand her life of you!"
Miss Harmer cowered back into her chair before the young girl who stood looking down with her earnest face upon her; and raised her hands feebly, as if to keep her accuser at a distance.
"I pity you," Polly went on, "I pity you from my heart; but yet I demand my sister's life; give her back to us again, and you will be doubly—yes, tenfold repaid; for your peace of mind will be restored to you. I know what you must have suffered—your changed face shows it; I know what misery you must have undergone, and the struggle between your conscience, your innate sense of right, and what you had been led to believe. This was terrible before; but it was nothing to what you will feel now, with the thought of my sister, whom you are sending to her grave, before you. You cannot—I see it in your face—you cannot reconcile with your conscience what you are doing; for your own sake, Miss Harmer, and for my sister's, I call upon you to do what is right."
"What would you have?" Miss Harmer asked, wringing her hands in helpless despair; "we offered at Christmas——"
"You did," Polly broke in, "you tried to cheat your conscience, as Ananias did of old, by giving part while you held back the rest; but we could not accept it: not even to save life, could we receive as a gift part of our own, and so become almost participators in the robbery of Sophy and ourselves. No, Miss Harmer, we must have our own, or nothing. I call upon you now, solemnly in the names of your dead brother, and of my dying sister, to give me this will you are hiding. Give it to me, and I promise you in the name of us all, that the past shall never be alluded to; I offer you a clear conscience, and our blessing, as the saviour of my sister's life."
"But my sister!—Father Eustace!" Miss Harmer murmured, in a terrified tone to herself. "Oh, no, no, no, I dare not!" and she again wrung her hands despairingly.
"You dare not refuse, Miss Harmer; you dare not go down to your grave with this grievous wrong and with my sister's death upon your soul; you will have to meet then, One whose wrath will be far more terrible than that of the anger of mortal. Miss Harmer, give me the will,—come," and with an air of mingled entreaty and command, Sophy took Miss Harmer's hands, looking down upon her with her earnest eyes, and Miss Harmer almost unconsciously rose to her feet.
"Come," Polly said again, "save my sister's life, earn peace and happiness for yourself, here and hereafter."
The girl led the old woman to the door, never taking her eyes from her face, for she felt that somehow she was exercising a strange power over her, that she was leading her, as it were, against her own will and volition, and that if nothing occurred to break the spell, the victory was hers. Miss Harmer's eyes were wide open, but she hardly seemed to see, but went mechanically, like a person walking in her sleep; her lips moved, but no sound came from them; then they went out of the door, and up the stairs, and turned towards the door of Mr. Harmer's former bedroom, when a noiseless step came up the stairs behind them, a hand was placed upon Miss Harmer's shoulder, and the deep voice of Father Eustace said,—
"Sister Angela, what are you doing?"
As a sleep-walker startled at some sudden touch from a dream, the old woman turned round with a convulsive start, and then with a loud cry fell senseless to the ground.
"Who are you?" the priest asked of Polly, as he stooped to raise the fallen woman. "Who are you?"
"One of the rightful possessors of this house," Polly said, proudly; and then turning round—for she saw that the prize was hopelessly lost at the moment of victory—she went down stairs and out of the house, telling Sarah, whom she found in the hall, to go upstairs to help the astonished Father Eustace to carry the insensible woman to her room.
Polly, when she got home again, went straight to the library, and told papa of her visit to Harmer Place, and its results, and how nearly she had been to the recovery of the will. Papa looked thoughtful over it for some time.
"It was a dangerous experiment, Polly, but the fact that you so nearly succeeded, proves that it was not a hopeless one, as I should have unhesitatingly have pronounced it to be, had you asked my opinion before starting. It shows that the will is in existence still, and no doubt as she was leading you towards Mr. Harmer's room, she was going down the upper staircase towards the secret chamber, in some closet in which it is undoubtedly concealed. I only hope that Miss Harmer will not, when she returns home, and hears what a narrow escape she has had, destroy the will at once. However, we must do as we have done before, hope for the best."
Papa and Polly had a long talk again over Miss Harmer, and they quite agreed that her religious bigotry and personal obstinacy were both so great that it was hopeless to expect any change in her. Her superstition was the only weak point in her character. So great was this, that papa said that, strong-minded woman as she was in other respects, he had heard her confess that she would not remain without a light at night for any consideration, and that she would not even go into a dark room without a candle on any account.
"It is very strange, papa," Polly said. "How do you account for a feeling so opposed to her general character?"
"We are all anomalies, Polly, and in the present instance the anomaly can be accounted for more easily than it can in many others. As children, the Misses Harmer were brought up in convents abroad, and saw pictures and were told stories of the martyrdoms of saints, until the very air seemed full of horrors. I have no doubt that this is how their feeling originated; but at any rate it is fortunate for us, for there is no question that it is their superstition, heightened by the threat I held over them of