There was something in his manner that made Sweetwater lean forward and Frederick look up, so that the father’s and son’s eyes met under that young man’s scrutiny.  But while he saw meaning in both their regards, there was nothing like collusion, and, baffled by these appearances, which, while interesting, told him little or nothing, he transferred his attention to Dr. Talbot and Knapp, who had drawn together to see what this paper contained.

“As I have said, the contents of this will are a surprise to me,” faltered Mr. Sutherland.  “They are equally so to my son.  He can hardly be said to have been a friend even of the extraordinary woman who thus leaves him her whole fortune.”

“I never spoke with her but twice,” exclaimed Frederick with a studied coldness, which was so evidently the cloak of inner agitation that Sweetwater trembled for its effect, notwithstanding the state of his own thoughts, which were in a ferment.  Frederick, the inheritor of Agatha Webb’s fortune!  Frederick, concerning whom his father had said on the previous night that he possessed no motive for wishing this good woman’s death!  Was it the discovery that such a motive existed which had so aged this man in the last twelve hours?  Sweetwater dared not turn again to see.  His own face might convey too much of his own fears, doubts, and struggle.

But the coroner, for whose next words Sweetwater listened with acute expectancy, seemed to be moved simply by the unexpectedness of the occurrence.  Glancing at Frederick with more interest than he had ever before shown him, he cried with a certain show of enthusiasm: 

“A pretty fortune!  A very pretty fortune!” Then with a deprecatory air natural to him in addressing Mr. Sutherland, “Would it be indiscreet for me to ask to what our dear friend Agatha alludes in her reference to your late lamented wife?” His finger was on a clause of the will and his lips next minute mechanically repeated what he was pointing at: 

“’In remembrance of services rendered me in early life by Marietta Sutherland, wife of Charles Sutherland of Sutherlandtown, I bequeath to Frederick, sole child of her affection, all the property, real and personal, of which I die possessed.’  Services rendered!  They must have been very important ones,” suggested Dr. Talbot.

Mr. Sutherland’s expression was one of entire perplexity and doubt.

“I do not remember my wife ever speaking of any special act of kindness she was enabled to show Agatha Webb.  They were always friends, but never intimate ones.  However, Agatha could be trusted to make no mistake.  She doubtless knew to what she referred.  Mrs. Sutherland was fully capable of doing an extremely kind act in secret.”

For all his respect for the speaker, Dr. Talbot did not seem quite satisfied.  He glanced at Frederick and fumbled the paper uneasily.

“Perhaps you were acquainted with the reason for this legacy—­this large legacy,” he emphasised.