The maid set it down.

Next instant Mrs. Ransom’s door opened.

“Don’t be too generous with me,” he heard her call softly out.  “I can’t eat.  I’m too upset for much food.  Tea,” she whispered, “and some nice toast.  Tell Mrs. Deo that I want nothing else.  She will understand.”

The maid nodded and disappeared down the hall just as a bare arm was thrust out from Anitra’s door and the tray drawn in.  A few minutes later the other tray came up and was carried into Mrs. Ransom’s room.  The contrast in the way the two trays had been received struck him as showing the difference between the two women, especially after he had been given an opportunity, as he was later, of seeing the ferocious way in which the food brought to Anitra had been disposed of.

But I anticipate.  The latter tray had not yet been pushed again into the hall, and Mr. Ransom was still smoking his first cigar when he heard the lawyer’s voice in the office below asking to have pen and ink placed in the small reception-room.  This recalled him to the real purpose of his wife’s presence in the house, and also assured him that the opportunity would soon be given him for another glimpse of her before the evening was over.  It was also likely to be a full-face one, as she would have to advance several steps directly towards him before taking the turn leading to the front staircase.

He awaited the moment eagerly.  The hour for signing the will had been set at nine o’clock, but it was surely long past that time now.  No, the clock in the office is striking; it is just nine.  Would she recognize the summons?  Assuredly; for with the last stroke she lifts the latch of her door and comes out.

She has exchanged her dark dress for a light one and has arranged her hair in the manner he likes best.  But he scarcely notes these changes in the interest he feels in her intentions and the manner in which she proceeds to carry out her purpose.

She does not advance at once to the staircase, but creeps first to her sister’s door, where she stands listening for a minute or so in an attitude of marked anxiety.  Then, with a gesture expressive of repugnance and alarm, she steps quickly forward and disappears down the staircase without vouchsafing one glance in his direction.

His vision of her as she looked in that short passage from room to staircase was momentary only, but it left him shuddering.  Never before had he seen resolve burning to a white heat in the human countenance.  There was something abnormal in it, taken with his knowledge of her face in its happier and more wholesome aspects.  The innocent, affectionate young girl, whose soul he had looked upon as a weeded garden, had become in a moment to his eyes a suffering, determined, deeply concentrated woman of unsuspected power and purpose.  A suggestion of wildness in her air added to the mysterious impression she made; an impression which rendered this instant memorable to him and set