“What conditions would you impose upon me?”

“Sit down, Mr. Dunbar, and let us transact the necessary business which alone made this interview possible.”

With an imperious gesture, befitting some sovereign who reluctantly accords audience, she motioned him to the chair, and as he seated himself his eyes gleamed ominously.

“It pleases you to ignore our past relations?”

“Even so.  To-day we meet merely as attorney and client to arrange the final quid pro quo.  You have brought the paper?”

“I inferred from your message that you desired as exact a copy as memory permitted.  Here it is.”

He took from his pocket a long legal envelope.

“I believe you stated that your father originally drew up this paper, and that recently you altered and re-wrote it?”

“Those are the facts relative to it.”

“Can you recall the date of the revision?”

“Nearly a year ago.  Last May it was signed in the presence of Doctor Ledyard and Colonel Powell, who also signed as witnesses, though ignorant of its contents.”

“You offer me this as a correct expression of Gen’l Darrington’s wishes regarding the distribution of his estate, real and personal?”

“At your request I furnish from memory a copy of Gen’l Darrington’s will, which I have faithfully endeavored to recall, and I conscientiously believe this to be strictly accurate.  Shall I read it?”

A severe and prolonged fit of coughing delayed her reply; and when she held out her hand for the paper, her breathing was painfully rapid and labored.

“I will not tax you.  Let me glance over it.”

Spreading the long sheets open before her, she leaned over the table and read.

In the palm of her right hand rested her temple, and the left smoothed and turned the leaves.  Crossing his arms on the top of the table, the attorney bent forward and surrendered himself to the coveted delight of studying the face, that had made summary shipwreck of his matrimonial fortune.  No slightest detail escaped him; the burnished locks curled loosely around the forehead smooth as a sleeping baby’s, the broad arch of the delicately-pencilled black brows, the Madonna droop of the lids whose heavy sable fringes deepened the bluish shadows beneath the eyes, the straight, flawless nose, the perfect chin with its deeply-incised dimple, the remarkably beautiful mouth, which despairing grief had kissed and made its own.

Pale as marble, the proud, patrician face was pure as some bending lily frozen on its graceful, rounded stem:  and the tapering fingers with daintily curved, polished nails would have suited better the lace and velvet of royal robes than the rough home-spun sleeves folded back from the white wrists.