“Certainly, Mrs. Quintard; and if you will tell me—­”

“My dear, it’s just this—­yes, I will sit down.  Last week my brother died.  You have heard of him no doubt, C. Dudley Brooks?”

“Oh, yes; my father knew him—­we all knew him by reputation.  Do not hurry, Mrs. Quintard.  I have sent my car away.  You can take all the time you wish.”

“No, no, I cannot.  I’m in desperate haste.  He—­but let me go on with my story.  My brother was a widower, with no children to inherit.  That everybody knows.  But his wife left behind her a son by a former husband, and this son of hers my brother had in a measure adopted, and even made his sole heir in a will he drew up during the lifetime of his wife.  But when he found, as he very soon did, that this young man was not developing in a way to meet such great responsibilities, he made a new will—­though unhappily without the knowledge of the family, or even of his most intimate friends—­in which he gave the bulk of his great estate to his nephew Clement, who has bettered the promise of his youth and who besides has children of great beauty whom my brother had learned to love.  And this will—­this hoarded scrap of paper which means so much to us all, is lost! lost! and I—­” here her voice which had risen almost to a scream, sank to a horrified whisper, “am the one who lost it.”

“But there’s a copy of it somewhere—­there is always a copy—­”

“Oh, but you haven’t heard all.  My nephew is an invalid; has been an invalid for years—­that’s why so little is known about him.  He’s dying of consumption.  The doctors hold out no hope for him, and now, with the fear preying upon him of leaving his wife and children penniless, he is wearing away so fast that any hour may see his end.  And I have to meet his eyes—­such pitiful eyes—­and the look in them is killing me.  Yet, I was not to blame.  I could not help—­Oh, Miss Strange,” she suddenly broke in with the inconsequence of extreme feeling, “the will is in the house!  I never carried it off the floor where I sleep.  Find it; find it, I pray, or—­”

The moment had come for Violet’s soft touch, for Violet’s encouraging word.

“I will try,” she answered her.

Mrs. Quintard grew calmer.

“But, first,” the young girl continued, “I must know more about the conditions.  Where is this nephew of yours—­the man who is ill?”

“In this house, where he has been for the last eight months.”

“Was the child his of whom I caught a glimpse in the hall as I came in?”

“Yes, and—­”

“I will fight for that child!” Violet cried out impulsively.  “I am sure his father’s cause is good.  Where is the other claimant—­ the one you designate as Carlos?”

“Oh, there’s where the trouble is!  Carlos is on the Mauretania, and she is due here in a couple of days.  He comes from the East where he has been touring with his wife.  Miss Strange, the lost will must be found before then, or the other will be opened and read and Carlos made master of this house, which would mean our quick departure and Clement’s certain death.”