She had been standing in front of the bureau while these thoughts passed through her mind, and now, dropping the envelope back into the drawer mechanically, she unfolded the document.  It was written on legal paper, in her father’s own hand.

Mrs. Carteret was not familiar with legal verbiage, and there were several expressions of which she did not perhaps appreciate the full effect; but a very hasty glance enabled her to ascertain the purport of the paper.  It was a will, by which, in one item, her father devised to his daughter Janet, the child of the woman known as Julia Brown, the sum of ten thousand dollars, and a certain plantation or tract of land a short distance from the town of Wellington.  The rest and residue of his estate, after deducting all legal charges and expenses, was bequeathed to his beloved daughter, Olivia Merkell.

Mrs. Carteret breathed a sigh of relief.  Her father had not preferred another to her, but had left to his lawful daughter the bulk of his estate.  She felt at the same time a growing indignation at the thought that that woman should so have wrought upon her father’s weakness as to induce him to think of leaving so much valuable property to her bastard,—­property which by right should go, and now would go, to her own son, to whom by every rule of law and decency it ought to descend.

A fire was burning in the next room, on account of the baby,—­there had been a light frost the night before, and the air was somewhat chilly.  For the moment the room was empty.  Mrs. Carteret came out from her chamber and threw the offending paper into the fire, and watched it slowly burn.  When it had been consumed, the carbon residue of one sheet still retained its form, and she could read the words on the charred portion.  A sentence, which had escaped her eye in her rapid reading, stood out in ghostly black upon the gray background:—­

“All the rest and residue of my estate I devise and bequeath to my daughter Olivia Merkell, the child of my beloved first wife.”

Mrs. Carteret had not before observed the word “first.”  Instinctively she stretched toward the fire the poker which she held in her hand, and at its touch the shadowy remnant fell to pieces, and nothing but ashes remained upon the hearth.

Not until the next morning did she think again of the envelope which had contained the paper she had burned.  Opening the drawer where it lay, the oblong blue envelope confronted her.  The sight of it was distasteful.  The indorsed side lay uppermost, and the words seemed like a mute reproach:—­

“The Last Will and Testament of Samuel Merkell.”

Snatching up the envelope, she glanced into it mechanically as she moved toward the next room, and perceived a thin folded paper which had heretofore escaped her notice.  When opened, it proved to be a certificate of marriage, in due form, between Samuel Merkell and Julia Brown.  It was dated from a county in South Carolina, about two years before her father’s death.