Mrs. Carteret was very much disturbed. It was supposed that the shock of her aunt's death had affected¹ her health, for since that event she had fallen into a nervous condition which gave the major grave concern. Much to the general surprise, Mrs. Ochiltree had left no will, and no property of any considerable value except her homestead, which descended² to Mrs. Carteret as the natural heir. Whatever she may have had on hand in the way of ready money had undoubtedly⁴ been abstracted from the cedar⁶ chest by the midnight marauder, to whose visit her death was immediately due. Her niece's grief was held to mark a deep-seated affection for the grim old woman who had reared her.  
Mrs. Carteret's present state of mind, of which her nervousness was a sufficiently⁷ accurate reflection, did in truth date from her aunt's death, and also in part from the time of the conversation with Mrs. Ochiltree, one afternoon, during and after the drive past Miller's new hospital. Mrs. Ochiltree had grown steadily⁸ more and more childish after that time, and her niece had never succeeded in making her pick up the thread of thought where it had been dropped. At any rate, Mrs. Ochiltree had made no further disclosure upon the subject.
 
An examination, not long after her aunt's death, of the papers found near the cedar chest on the morning after the murder had contributed to Mrs. Carteret's enlightenment, but had not promoted her peace of mind.
 
When Mrs. Carteret reached home, after her hurried exploration of the cedar chest, she thrust into a bureau drawer the envelope she had found. So fully⁹ was her mind occupied, for several days, with the funeral, and with the excitement attending the arrest of Sandy Campbell, that she deferred¹⁰ the examination of the contents of the envelope until near the end of the week.
 
One morning, while alone in her chamber¹¹, she drew the envelope from the drawer, and was holding it in her hand, hesitating as to whether or not she should open it, when the baby in the next room began to cry.
 
The child's cry seemed like a warning, and yielding to a vague uneasiness, she put the paper back.
 
"Phil," she said to her husband at luncheon¹², "Aunt Polly said some strange things to me one day before she died,—I don't know whether she was quite in her right mind or not; but suppose that my father had left a will by which it was provided that half his property should go to that woman and her child?"
 
"It would never have gone by such a will," replied the major easily. "Your Aunt Polly was in her dotage¹⁴, and merely dreaming. Your father would never have been such a fool; but even if he had, no such will could have stood the test of the courts. It would clearly have been due to the improper¹⁶ influence of a designing woman."
 
"So that legally, as well as morally," said Mrs. Carteret, "the will would have been of no effect?"
 
"Not the slightest. A jury would soon have broken down the legal claim. As for any moral obligation, there would have been nothing moral about the affair. The only possible consideration for such a gift was an immoral¹⁷ one. I don't wish to speak harshly of your father, my dear, but his conduct was gravely reprehensible¹⁸. The woman herself had no right or claim whatever; she would have been whipped and expelled from the town, if justice—blind, bleeding justice, then prostrate¹⁹ at the feet of slaves and aliens—could have had her way!"
 
"But the child"—
 
"The child was in the same category. Who was she, to have inherited the estate of your ancestors, of which, a few years before, she would herself have formed a part? The child of shame, it was hers to pay the penalty. But the discussion is all in the air, Olivia. Your father never did and never would have left such a will."
 
This conversation relieved Mrs. Carteret's uneasiness. Going to her room shortly afterwards, she took the envelope from her bureau drawer and drew out a bulky paper. The haunting fear that it might be such a will as her aunt had suggested was now removed; for such an instrument, in the light of what her husband had said confirming her own intuitions, would be of no valid²⁰ effect. It might be just as well, she thought, to throw the paper in the fire without looking at it. She wished to think as well as might be of her father, and she felt that her respect for his memory would not be strengthened by the knowledge that he had meant to leave his estate away from her; for her aunt's words had been open to the construction that she was to have been left destitute²¹. Curiosity strongly prompted her to read the paper. Perhaps the will contained no such provision as she had feared, and it might convey some request or direction which ought properly to be complied with.
 
She had been standing²² in front of the bureau while these thoughts passed through her mind, and now, dropping the envelope back into the drawer mechanically, she unfolded the document. It was written on legal paper, in her father's own hand.
 
Mrs. Carteret was not familiar with legal verbiage²³, and there were several expressions of which she did not perhaps appreciate the full effect; but a very hasty glance enabled her to ascertain²⁴ the purport²⁵ of the paper. It was a will, by which, in one item, her father devised to his daughter Janet, the child of the woman known as Julia Brown, the sum of ten thousand dollars, and a certain plantation²⁶ or tract⁵ of land a short distance from the town of Wellington. The rest and residue²⁷ of his estate, after deducting²⁸ all legal charges and expenses, was bequeathed to his beloved daughter, Olivia Merkell.
 
Mrs. Carteret breathed a sigh of relief. Her father had not preferred another to her, but had left to his lawful²⁹ daughter the bulk of his estate. She felt at the same time a growing indignation at the thought that that woman should so have wrought³⁰ upon her father's weakness as to induce him to think of leaving so much valuable property to her bastard,—property which by right should go, and now would go, to her own son, to whom by every rule of law and decency³¹ it ought to descend³.
 
A fire was burning in the next room, on account of the baby,—there had been a light frost the night before, and the air was somewhat chilly³². For the moment the room was empty. Mrs. Carteret came out from her chamber and threw the offending paper into the fire, and watched it slowly burn. When it had been consumed, the carbon residue of one sheet still retained its form, and she could read the words on the charred³³ portion. A sentence, which had escaped her eye in her rapid reading, stood out in ghostly black upon the gray background:—
 
"All the rest and residue of my estate I devise and bequeath to my daughter Olivia Merkell, the child of my beloved first wife."
 
Mrs. Carteret had not before observed the word "first." Instinctively³⁴ she stretched toward the fire the poker³⁵ which she held in her hand, and at its touch the shadowy remnant fell to pieces, and nothing but ashes remained upon the hearth³⁶.
 
Not until the next morning did she think again of the envelope which had contained the paper she had burned. Opening the drawer where it lay, the oblong blue envelope confronted her. The sight of it was distasteful. The indorsed side lay uppermost, and the words seemed like a mute reproach:—
 
"The Last Will and Testament³⁷ of Samuel Merkell."
 
Snatching up the envelope, she glanced into it mechanically as she moved toward the next room, and perceived a thin folded paper which had heretofore escaped her notice. When opened, it proved to be a certificate of marriage, in due form, between Samuel Merkell and Julia Brown. It was dated from a county in South Carolina, about two years before her father's death.
 
For a moment Mrs. Carteret stood gazing blankly at this faded slip of paper. Her father had married this woman!—at least he had gone through the form of marriage with her, for to him it had surely been no more than an empty formality. The marriage of white and colored persons was forbidden by law. Only recently she had read of a case where both the parties to such a crime, a colored man and a white woman, had been sentenced to long terms in the penitentiary³⁸. She even recalled the circumstances. The couple had been living together unlawfully,—they were very low people, whose private lives were beneath the public notice,—but influenced by a religious movement pervading³⁹ the community, had sought, they said at the trial, to secure the blessing⁴⁰ of God upon their union. The higher law, which imperiously demanded that the purity and prestige of the white race be preserved at any cost, had intervened at this point.
 
Mechanically she moved toward the fireplace, so dazed by this discovery as to be scarcely conscious of her own actions. She surely had not formed any definite intention of destroying this piece of paper when her fingers relaxed unconsciously and let go their hold upon it. The draught⁴¹ swept it toward the fireplace. Ere scarcely touching⁴² the flames it caught, blazed fiercely, and shot upward with the current of air. A moment later the record of poor Julia's marriage was scattered⁴³ to the four winds of heaven, as her poor body had long since mingled⁴⁴ with the dust of earth.
 
The letter remained unread. In her agitation⁴⁵ at the discovery of the marriage certificate, Olivia had almost forgotten the existence of the letter. It was addressed to "John Delamere, Esq., as Executor of my Last Will and Testament," while the lower left hand corner bore the direction: "To be delivered only after my death, with seal unbroken."
 
The seal was broken already; Mr. Delamere was dead; the letter could never be delivered. Mrs. Carteret unfolded it and read:—
 
MY DEAR DELAMERE,—I have taken the liberty of naming you as executor of my last will, because you are my friend, and the only man of my acquaintance whom I feel that I can trust to carry out my wishes, appreciate my motives⁴⁶, and preserve the silence I desire.
 
I have, first, a confession⁴⁷ to make. Inclosed in this letter you will find a certificate of marriage between my child Janet's mother and myself. While I have never exactly repented⁴⁸ of this marriage, I have never had the courage to acknowledge it openly. If I had not married Julia, I fear Polly Ochiltree would have married me by main force,—as she would marry you or any other gentleman unfortunate enough to fall in the way of this twice-widowed man-hunter. When my wife died, three years ago, her sister Polly offered to keep house for me and the child. I would sooner have had the devil in the house, and yet I trembled with alarm,—there seemed no way of escape,—it was so clearly and obviously the proper thing.
 
But she herself gave me my opportunity. I was on the point of consenting, when she demanded, as a condition of her coming, that I discharge Julia, my late wife's maid. She was laboring⁴⁹ under a misapprehension in regard to the girl, but I grasped at the straw, and d............