“No doubt.”

“Then perhaps you’ll look for it:  and read over her wishes in black and white.”

“To what end?  It would make no difference in my decision.  I tell you, ma’am, I am consulting Maude’s wishes in keeping her child at home.”

“I know better,” retorted the dowager, completely losing her temper.  “I wish your poor dear wife could rise from her grave and confute you.  It’s all stinginess; because you won’t part with a paltry bit of money.”

“No,” said Val, “it’s because I won’t part with my child.  Understand me, Lady Kirton—­had Maude’s wishes even been with you in this, I should not carry them out.  As to money—­I may have something to say to you on that score; but suppose we postpone it to a more fitting opportunity.”

“You wouldn’t carry them out!” she cried.  “But you might be forced to, you mean man!  That letter may be as good as a will in the eyes of the law.  You daren’t produce it; that’s what it is.”

“I’ll give it you with pleasure,” said Val, with a smile.  “That is, if I have kept it.  I am not sure.”

She caught up her fan, and sat fanning herself.  The reservation had suggested a meaning never intended to her crafty mind; her rebellious son-in-law meant to destroy the letter; and she began wondering how she could outwit him.

A sharp cry outside the door interrupted them.  The children were only coming in to dessert now; and Reginald, taking a flying leap down the stairs, took rather too long a one, and came to grief at the bottom.  Truth to say, the young gentleman, no longer kept down by poor Edward, was getting high-spirited and venturesome.

“What’s that?” asked Anne, as the nurse came in with them, scolding.

“Lord Elster fell down, my lady.  He’s getting as tiresome as can be.  Only to-day, I caught him astride the kitchen banisters, going to slide down them.”

“Oh, Regy,” said his mother, holding up her reproving finger.

The boy laughed, and came forward rubbing his arm, and ashamed of his tears.  Val caught him up and kissed them away, drawing Maude also to his side.

That letter!  The dowager was determined to get it, if there was a possibility of doing so.  A suspicion that she would not be tolerated much longer in Lady Hartledon’s house was upon her, and she knew not where to go.  Kirton had married again; and his new wife had fairly turned her out more unceremoniously than the late one did.  By hook or by crook, she meant to obtain the guardianship of her granddaughter, because in giving her Maude, Lord Hartledon would have to allow her an income.

She was a woman to stop at nothing; and upon quitting the dining-room she betook herself to the library—­a large, magnificent room—­the pride of Hartledon.  She had come in search of Val’s desk; which she found, and proceeded to devise means of opening it.  That accomplished, she sat herself down, like a leisurely housebreaker, to examine it, putting on a pair of spectacles, which she kept surreptitiously in a pocket, and would not have worn before any one for the world.  She found the letter she was in search of; and she found something else for her pains, which she had not bargained for.