“I want to fasten it all in my mind,” she said “before I go on.  Mr. Michael Vanstone knew of the first will; he knew what prevented the making of the second will; he knew of the letter and he read the words.  What did he know of besides?  Did you tell him of my mother’s last illness?  Did you say that her share in the money would have been left to us, if she could have lifted her dying hand in your presence?  Did you try to make him ashamed of the cruel law which calls girls in our situation Nobody’s Children, and which allows him to use us as he is using us now?”

“I put all those considerations to him.  I left none of them doubtful; I left none of them out.”

She slowly reached her hand to the copy of the Instructions, and slowly folded it up again, in the shape in which it had been presented to her.  “I am much obliged to you, Mr. Pendril.”  With those words, she bowed, and gently pushed the manuscript back across the table; then turned to her sister.

“Norah,” she said, “if we both of us live to grow old, and if you ever forget all that we owe to Michael Vanstone—­come to me, and I will remind you.”

She rose and walked across the room by herself to the window.  As she passed Mr. Clare, the old man stretched out his claw-like fingers and caught her fast by the arm before she was aware of him.

“What is this mask of yours hiding?” he asked, forcing her to bend to him, and looking close into her face.  “Which of the extremes of human temperature does your courage start from—­the dead cold or the white hot?”

She shrank back from him and turned away her head in silence.  She would have resented that unscrupulous intrusion on her own thoughts from any man alive but Frank’s father.  He dropped her arm as suddenly as he had taken it, and let her go on to the window.  “No,” he said to himself, “not the cold extreme, whatever else it may be.  So much the worse for her, and for all belonging to her.”

There was a momentary pause.  Once more the dripping rustle of the rain and the steady ticking of the clock filled up the gap of silence.  Mr. Pendril put the Instructions back in his pocket, considered a little, and, turning toward Norah and Miss Garth, recalled their attention to the present and pressing necessities of the time.

“Our consultation has been needlessly prolonged,” he sail, “by painful references to the past.  We shall be better employed in settling our arrangements for the future.  I am obliged to return to town this evening.  Pray let me hear how I can best assist you; pray tell me what trouble and what responsibility I can take off your hands.”