added to the horror of it by making a feeble joke. "What will you take
for your chance, mother?"

Before bad became worse, Mr. Mool summoned the energy of despair. He
wisely read the exact words of the Will, this time: "'And I give and
bequeath to my sister, Mrs. Maria Gallilee, one hundred pounds."'

Ovid's astonishment could only express itself in action. He started to
his feet.

Mr. Mool went on reading. "'Free of legacy duty, to buy a mourning
ring--"'

"Impossible!" Ovid broke out.

Mr. Mool finished the sentence. "'And my sister will understand the
motive which animates me in making this bequest."' He laid the Will on
the table, and ventured to look up. At the same time, Ovid turned to
his mother, struck by the words which had been just read, and eager to
inquire what their meaning might be.

Happily for themselves, the two men never knew what the preservation of
their tranquillity owed to that one moment of delay.

If they had looked at Mrs. Gallilee, when she was first aware of her
position in the Will, they might have seen the incarnate Devil
self-revealed in a human face. They might have read, in her eyes and on
her lips, a warning hardly less fearful than the unearthly writing on
the wall, which told the Eastern Monarch of his coming death. "See this
woman, and know what I can do with her, when she has repelled her