On the very night that Faynie had returned so unceremoniously there had been a most thrilling scene but an hour before between Mrs. Fairfax and her daughter.
Unable to sleep, Claire had wandered down to her late stepfather"s library in search of a book.
She was not a little surprised to see her mother there--writing--at that late hour.
Her footsteps had made no sound on the thick velvet carpet, and she stole up to her side quite un.o.bserved, looking over her shoulder to see what interested her mother so deeply.
One--two---three--four--five minutes she stood there, fairly rooted to the spot, then a gasp of terror broke from her white lips, causing her mother to spring to her feet like a flash.
"Claire!" she exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely, trembling like an aspen leaf and clinging to the back of the nearest chair for support. "How long have you been here?" she gasped.
"Quite--five--minutes," whispered the girl.
"And you have seen--" The mother looked into the daughter"s eyes fearfully, not daring to utter the words trembling on her lips.
"I saw you change the--the will!" whispered Claire, in a terror-stricken voice. "I saw you erase with a green fluid, which must have been a most powerful chemical, the words of the will, "to my daughter Faynie" in the sentence: "I bequeath all of my estate, both personal and real," and insert therein the words, "my wife, Margaret" in place of "my daughter Faynie.""
The woman stepped forward and clutched the girl"s arm.
"It was for your sake, Claire, that I did it," she whispered, shrilly; "he cut us off with almost nothing, giving all to that proud daughter Faynie of his. We would have had to step out into the world--beggars again. We know what it is to be poor--ay, in want; we could never endure it again--death would be easier for both of us.
"The will was drawn two years ago; I am confident that it is the latest--that there is no other. I took a desperate chance to do what I have done to-night--so cleverly that it could never be detected.
"A few strokes of the pen meant wealth or poverty for us, Claire. I am too old to face beggary after living a life of luxury. You will not betray me, Claire--you dare not, knowing that it was done for your sake, Claire."
The girl was not naturally wicked; she had always had a great respect for the high-bred, beautiful Faynie--her stepfather"s daughter by his first wife. There had been no discord between the two young girls.
Still, as her mother had said so emphatically, it was better that Faynie should step out of that lovely home a beggar than that they should lose it.
Claire quite agreed with her mother that Faynie must stay there for the present at all hazards; it would arouse such an uproar if she were thrust from that roof just then.
"If my father has expressed the desire that I shall stay here six months, I--I shall do so, even though it breaks my heart," Faynie had said.
She kept her own apartments, refusing to come down to her meals, and Mrs. Fairfax humored this whim by ordering Faynie"s meals served in her rooms.
In vain the old housekeeper expostulated with Faynie, urging her to come down at least to the drawing-room evenings, as she used to do.
Faynie shook her golden curls.
"It is no longer my home," she would say, with bitter sobs; "I am only biding my time here--the six months that I am in duty bound to remain--then I am going away--it does not matter where."
The old housekeeper had tried in vain to coax from the girl the story of where she had been while away from home.
"That is my secret," Faynie would say, with a burst of bitter tears; "I shall never divulge it--until the hour I lie dying."
CHAPTER XVII.
EVERY MAN TO HIS TRADE.
After the bogus Lester Armstrong had dispatched his letter of acceptance to Mrs. Fairfax he braced himself for what would happen next by taking a deep draught from the silver brandy flask which he kept in his breast pocket, though he realized that he had need of all his senses for any emergency.
During the next hour a score or more bookkeepers came to him with bills, letters and papers of all descriptions. To one and all he said, with a yawn, and very impatiently: "Leave what you have brought on my desk; I"ll look over it this afternoon."
Then it occurred to him that such a great concern must have a general manager, and of course he would know something about the different papers these people had brought for his inspection and for him to pa.s.s upon, which were like so much Greek to him.
In answer to his summons, a tall, dignified, keen-eyed elderly man responded--a man who struck considerable awe to Kendale"s guilty heart.
He said to himself that he wished to the Lord he knew this man"s name to be able to call him by it--but of course it couldn"t be helped.
"I have concluded to permit you to attend to these matters for me--get through them the best you can in your own way without bothering me with them; do just as you would if I were away on a vacation, we will say, and left everything in your charge--all matters for you to settle as you deemed best."
The gentleman looked surprised and bowed gravely. "I can attend to most of the doc.u.ments connected with the firm, but there are a few matters I see there that the parties interested might object to if they saw the name of Manager Wright attached instead of the name of the proprietor."
"In that case, show me where you want me to sign, and I"ll put down my name here and now, to end the matter."
"Without first examining the doc.u.ments carefully?" asked the manager, in amazement, thinking how slipshod in his business methods the new proprietor of the great establishment was becoming since he suddenly found himself raised from a poor cashier to a multi-millionaire, and thinking that good old Mr. Marsh would turn over in his grave if he had heard that.
"Thank Heaven all that is off my mind," muttered Kendale, breathing freer as the manager left the office with the papers, adding, thoughtfully: "I hope I won"t have to come in contact with that man very often. I felt so uncomfortable that it was by the greatest effort I could control myself--keep from springing from my chair, seizing my hat and fairly flying out of this place.
"His keen gray eyes seemed to pierce through and through me. I expected every moment to hear him shout out: "Come hither, everybody--quickly; this man is not Lester Armstrong, striking though the resemblance is.
Send for the police, that this mystery may be solved at once!""
He was not far wrong in his suspicions.
Manager Wright had quitted the private office with a deeply knitted brow and a troubled expression on his face.
"The change in Lester Armstrong since yesterday is amazing," he mused.
"Long years of dissipation could not have told more on him than the change these few hours have worked. He must have been out drinking and carousing all night long--the odor of the room from the fumes of strong liquor was almost unbearable; it was blue with smoke, too, and Lester Armstrong always led us to believe that he had never smoked a cigar in his life; and, worst of all, from a gentleman he has suddenly turned into a libertine, if I am any judge of features.
"I cannot begin to account for the great change in him; it mystifies me quite as much as it did the store detectives and Mr. Conway, the cashier. It is all terribly wrong--somehow--somewhere. If it were not that I have been here so many years I would tender Mr. Armstrong my resignation. I am not at all satisfied--and yet, yesterday, when Mr.
Armstrong called me into his private office and we had that long talk about the business matters of the house, I felt that all would go well; to-day he is like a different man--appears to have forgotten completely all of the instructions he was so particular to give me. Yesterday he said: "We will go over the books and papers very carefully, you and I, and see that every department is run as carefully and well as heretofore. I should not like any one in the establishment to feel that my taking possession will mean any change for them--save for the better."
"To-day he is as different as night from day; he does not know what he wants; he seems all at sea over the simplest details which he ought to be decidedly familiar with." His musings were suddenly cut short by an immediate summons to return to the private office.
It was with some misgivings that he entered his employer"s presence the second time.
The bogus Mr. Armstrong was almost invisible from a cloud of smoke from a freshly lighted Havana. He held the morning paper in his hand and was perusing its columns with apparent avidity.
"Wright!" he cried, excitedly, "how much ready money do you suppose there is in the safe of this shebang---hey?"
It took Mr. Wright almost a moment to recover his usual calm dignity and make answer:
"Five thousand in cash, and there are negotiable notes amounting to upward of forty thousand more."
"Are you sure of that?" queried Kendale, his excitement growing keener; "how do you know?"