“There are of plants
  That die of too much generosity—­
  Exhaling their sweet life in essences.”

Paul would have said that this too was a cropping out of the old causal strata.  In two hours more, David Grierson was dead, and Rachel was left to mourn for her parent and benefactor.

Now the issues were accumulating.  A very short time only was allowed to elapse before Mr. Ainslie, accompanied by Walter, came to seal up the repositories; an operation which was gone through in a manner which indicated that both of them thought they were locking up and making secure that which would destroy their hopes.  They seemed under the conviction that the will was in the bureau; and if they had been men otherwise than merely what, as the world goes, are called honest, they might have abstracted the document; for the generous Rachel never even looked at their proceedings, grieved as she was at the death of her father.  They were, at least, above that.

In a few days David Grierson was consigned to the earth, and, after the funeral, Mr. Ainslie, accompanied by Walter, again attended to open the repositories and read the testament.  Rachel agreed to be present.  When the seals were removed, she was asked by the notary if she knew where the document was deposited.  She now felt the consequence of the easy manner in which she had let slip the opportunity so dearly offered by her father, of knowing the locale of a writ in all respects so important; for it cannot be doubted that, if she had persevered, she might have succeeded in drawing out of him the word, articulated so as that she might have comprehended it.  She accordingly, yet without any anticipation of danger, answered in the negative, whereupon the notary and nephew, who seemed to be on the most friendly terms, set about a search.  Rachel remained.  A whole hour was passed in the search; the will was not yet found.  Every drawer of the bureau was examined,—­the presses, the cabinets, the table-drawers, the trunks.  And so another hour passed—­no will.  Rachel began to get alarmed, and perhaps the more that she saw upon the faces of the searchers an expression which she could not comprehend.  Their spirits seemed to have become elated as hers became depressed; yet why should that have been, if Walter Grierson was to be “true to his troth?”

“We need search no more,” said Mr. Ainslie.  “The will is not in the house.  I should say it is not in existence, and that Mr. Grierson, having changed his mind, had destroyed it.”

“Not so,” replied Rachel, “for a few minutes before his death he tried to tell me where it was, but the name of the place died away upon his tongue, and I could not catch it.”

“Neither can we catch the deed,” said Walter, with a laugh which had a spice of irony in it.