I took some moments for reflection, and then said,

“My advice is, to keep your own counsel, and wait until Mr. Wallingford returns from England.  Whenever you place this document in the hands of Judge Bigelow, he must go over to the adverse interest; when you will be compelled to seek another legal adviser.  You are not just ready for this; nor will be until after your agent comes back with the result of his investigations.  No wrong to any one can possibly occur from letting things remain just as they are for a few months.”

“I think your view of the matter correct, Doctor,” was her reply.  “And yet, to keep this secret, even for an hour, when I have no right to its possession, touches my conscience.  Is it just?  This will is not in my favor.  It does not even recognize my existence.  It devises property, of large value, in another line; and there may be heirs ready to take possession, the moment its existence is made known to them.  Am I not intermeddling, unjustly, in the affairs of another?”

“But for you,” I replied, “this will might never have seen the light.  If heirs exist, they can, therefore, have no just reason for complaint at the brief delay to which, under the circumstances, you are, in common justice, entitled.  Your conscience may be over sensitive, Mrs. Montgomery.”

“I would rather it were over sensitive than obtuse,” she said.  “Worldly possessions are desirable.  They give us many advantages.  We all desire and cling to them.  But they are dearly bought at the price of heavenly possessions.  What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?  Nothing!  It were better for him to die like Lazarus.  No, Doctor, I am resolved in this matter to be simply just.  If, in justice and right, this estate comes into my hands, I will take the wealth thankfully and use it as wisely as I can.  But I will not throw a single straw in the way of its passing to the legal heirs of my brother’s wife, if any are in existence and can be found.”

“But you will keep this secret until Mr. Wallingford’s return?” I urged.

“I do not see that wrong to any one can follow such a delay,” she answered.  “Yes, I will keep the secret.”

“And I will keep it also, even from my good Constance,” said I, “until your agent’s return.  The matter lies sacred between us.”

CHAPTER XIV.

“Mrs. Dewey is at her father’s,” said my wife to me, one evening in August, as we sat at the tea-table.

“Ah! have you seen her?” I was interested at once.  Six months had elapsed since Delia’s wedding, and this was her first visit home; though her mother had been twice down to New York, in company with the Squire, who had business with the firm to which Ralph belonged.  In fact, since his marriage to Squire Floyd’s daughter, young Dewey had prevailed upon his father-in-law to make the house of Floyd, Lawson, Lee & Co., agents for the entire product of his manufactory—­an arrangement which the Squire regarded as greatly to his advantage.