Mrs. Markson started; her eyes flashed with a sort of fire which I hope I may never see again, and she caught her lower lip up between her teeth.  The judge read the document as calmly as if it had been a mere supervisor’s notice, whereas it was different to the first will in every respect, for it gave to Helen all of his property, of every description, on condition that she paid to Mrs. Markson yearly the interest of twenty thousand dollars until death or marriage, “this being the amount,” as the will said, “that she assured me would be amply sufficient for my daughter under like circumstances.”

As the judge ceased reading, and folded the document, Mrs. Markson sprang at him as if she were a wild beast.

“Give it to me!” she screamed—­hissed, rather; “’tis a vile, hateful forgery!”

“Madame,” said the judge, hastily putting the will in his pocket, and taking off his glasses, “that is a matter which the law wisely provides shall not be decided by interested parties.  When I present it for probate—­”

“I’ll break it!” interrupted Mrs. Markson, glaring, as my family cat does when a mouse is too quick for her.

Mrs. Markson’s lawyer asked permission to look at the newer will, which the judge granted.  He looked carefully at the signature of Markson and the witnesses, and returned the document with a sigh.

“Don’t attempt it, madame—­no use,” said he.  “I know all the signatures; seen them a hundred times.  I’m sorry, very—­affects my pocket some, for it cuts some of my prospective fees, but—­that will can’t be broken.”

Mrs. Markson turned, looked at Helen a second, and then dashed at her, as if “to scatter, tear and slay,” as the old funeral hymn says.  Helen stumbled and cowered a little toward me, seeing which I—­how on earth I came to do it I don’t know—­put my arm around her, and looked indignantly at Mrs. Markson.

“You treacherous hussy!” said Mrs. Markson, stamping her foot—­“you scheming little minx!  I could kill you!  I could tear you to pieces!  I could drink your very heart’s blood—­I could—­”

What else she could do she was prevented from telling, for she fell into a fit, and was carried out rigid and foaming at the mouth.

I am generally sorry to see even wicked people suffer, but I wasn’t a bit sorry to see Mrs. Markson; for, while she was talking, poor Helen trembled so violently that it seemed to me she would be scared to death if her cruel stepmother talked much longer.

Two hours later Mrs. Markson, with all her relatives and personal effects, left the house, and six months afterward Mrs. Markson entrapped some other rich man into marrying her.  She never tried to break Marston’s will.

As Helen was utterly ignorant of the existence of this new will until she heard it read, the judge explained to her where it came from; and as she was naturally anxious for all the particulars of its discovery, the judge sent me to her to tell her the whole story.  So I dressed myself and drove down—­for, though still under thirty, I was well off, and drove my own span—­and told her of my interview with her father, on his deathbed, as well as of the scene on the night he hid the will.