"I think she's pretty, as I said. You may think her beautiful. I daresay plenty of men would; that sort of thing's a question of taste. I tell you what I do think beautiful--that's these diamonds. The sapphires and the pearls are all very well, but the diamonds are the stones for me."

"You would think that. You're the sort of woman who'd admire a gaudy frame, and have no eyes for the picture that was in it. If you like I'll tell you who she is and all about her. It may seem like sacrilege to talk of her to you, but I think I'll tell you all the same."

"Tell away. I suppose it's the old, old story: she met some one she fancied more than you. Men always do think that sort of thing is wonderful. But I don't mind listening."

"Yes, there was some one she liked better than me. That was the trouble."

"It generally is, while it lasts; then it turns out to be a blessing. But, of course, you've never had the chance."

"As you say, I've never had the chance. Her name--I won't tell you her name--though why shouldn't I? Her name is Margaret Wallace."

"Scotch, is she?"

"Her father was Scotch, her mother English. He was my dearest friend. When he died----"

"He left his only daughter, then a mere child, and that was all."

"That was all, and as you say she was a mere child. You seem to have had some experiences of your own."

"One or two. I'm more than seven."

"So I should imagine."

"You took her to your own home, found her in food and washing, and pocket-money now and then. As she grew older her wondrous beauty and her many virtues--especially the first lot--warmed your withered heart. When she attained to womanhood you breathed to her the secret of your passion, which she had spotted about eighteen years before; but as she didn't happen to be taking any, of course the band began to play. Isn't that the sort of story you were going to tell, only I daresay you wouldn't have told it in quite that way?"

"I certainly shouldn't have told it in quite that way."

"You had expended on her two hundred and forty-nine pounds nineteen and sixpence ha'penny, besides any amount of fuss, so her ingratitude stung you to the marrow. Still you might have borne with her; you might not even have altered the will which you had made in her favour, and which you kept shaking in her face; only when she took up with another chap she seemed to be coming it a bit too thick. You cried in your anger, 'I'll make you smart for this, my beauty!' So you started to make her smart; but it seems to me that you've done most of the smarting up to now. Was it her cruelty which made you the pretty sight you are?"

"Not altogether."

"Not altogether! You don't mean to say that when you wanted her to be your wife you were anything like what you are now? A nice kind of love yours must have been!"

"I appear to have acquired a really delightful wife."

"If you weren't a dead log it might be that you'd find out how true that was. Any man with a touch of spice in him would give the eyes out of his head for a wife like me, and there have been plenty who were ready to do it."

"As you yourself observed, these things are a question of taste. So you think she was justified in treating me as she did?"

"Justified for not wanting to marry a thing like you! You ought to have been drowned for hinting at it."

"I am myself beginning to think that your point of view may not be wholly incorrect, and that, therefore, it was fortunate that I did not die on the night we were married."

"I don't."

"You wouldn't--you have, of course, your own point of view. From mine it is fortunate that I have been spared to enable me to make another will."

"How are you going to make a will, when you can't move so much as a finger?"

"I can have one drawn up according to my instructions. You will find that I'm capable of signing it. Would you have any objection?"

"It would depend on what there was in it."

"I see. May I ask if you are under the impression that if I die without a will--even supposing our marriage is valid----"

"It's valid enough, don't you be afraid."

"I'm not afraid; you, I fancy, have the cause to fear. But I say, supposing our marriage is a marriage--as to which I say nothing either one way or the other--if I die intestate do you imagine that you will necessarily come into possession of all I have?"

"Have you any relatives?"

"Not one in the whole wide world."

"Then you bet I shall."

"You may bet you won't."

"Who's got more right to what you leave behind than your lawful wife?"

"It depends. Under no circumstances would you inherit more than half of my personal property, and a third of my real estate; the rest would go to the Crown."

"Half's something! Look here, Dr. Twelves told me that if I married you I should have twenty thousand pounds. Have you got as much?"

There was an interval before an answer came. Possibly the man in the bed was considering what answer he should make to such a very leading question.

"I cannot tell you exactly what I have got, but I may safely venture to assert this much: If all I possess--land, houses, shares and so on--were to be turned into cash to-morrow, I should find myself with at least two hundred thousand pounds."

"Two hundred thousand pounds! Go on!"

"This is a curious world, and Fortune is a curious jade; she bestows her gifts with feminine irresponsibility. She gives one health and strength and youth--and empty pockets--just when he could get enjoyment out of full ones. To another, crippled limbs, physical helplessness, premature old age--and pockets brimming over--just when money is of as little use to him as pictures to the blind. I have been denied most things except fortune. Sounds ironical, doesn't it? As with Midas, everything I have touched has turned to gold--in my case a thing wholly worthless. I never made a bad money speculation in my life. I doubt if I ever made an investment which did not pay me ten per cent. Some of my investments have paid me forty and fifty per cent, for years, and are worth ten times what I gave for them. I wasn't worth twenty thousand pounds when I began life; now, to adopt your phraseology, I'll bet I'm worth more than a quarter of a million."

"And yet you live in a place like this, without a horse in the stable, and the garden like a wilderness!"

"Why shouldn't I? Where would you have me live? In a castle? with an array of servants who would take my money and from whom I should have to hide. A well-bred servant wouldn't be able to endure the sight of such an object as I am. All I need is a bed to lie on, some one to put food between my lips, money to pay for it. Since here I have those things, here I have all I need. Besides, you should bear in mind that, as nothing is being spent, there will be all the more to leave behind."

She was silent; her face turned towards the open window, the miniature in its jewelled case still in her hand. His words had fired her imagination. A quarter of a million!--this man worth a quarter of a million!--and he supposed himself to be her husband! Not long ago she had told herself that a certain and clear five pounds a week earned by singing and dancing at the minor music halls would be her idea of fortune. She had married that deceitful humbug, Gregory Lamb, because she believed that he might possibly have as much as a thousand a year. What was a thousand a year compared to a quarter of a million! If he died without a will half of it would be hers, or was it a third? Why shouldn't she have more than that? If he had no relatives to make a fuss, why shouldn't she have it all?

Even as she asked herself the question an answer came to her dimly, yet with sufficient clearness to start her trembling. It was born of an idea which would have disposed most women to do more than tremble. Her breath came faster; her eyes brightened; something like a smile wrinkled her lips; the vista presented to her imagination, which would have appalled most persons, titillated her.

After a while she asked, without turning her head--

"If you were to make a will, what would you put in it?"

"I'll show you."

"When?"

"Now. There's a secret hiding-place in this room. If you tried do you think that you could find it?"

"I'd find it fast enough."

"Then find it."

"What sort of place is it?"

"That's asking for assistance. I'll give you this much. It's in the wall, concealed by a panel of wood. Now I've given you the scent, follow it to a finish--if you can."

"In a room like this there might be fifty hiding-places."

"There might."

"It would take days to examine it thoroughly; however long it might take me I'd find it. I'd strip the walls of everything before I'd give it up."

"I don't think you need go so far as that just yet. Look round; you've hawk's eyes; I've given you a hint; can't you make a likely guess, like the sharp-witted child who is playing hide-and-seek?"

Isabel's glances were travelling round the room searchingly, resting here and there, allowing nothing to escape them. When they had traversed the whole apartment from floor to ceiling in one direction they returned in another.

"You are not tricking me? There really is a secret hiding-place?"

"There really is."

"And you say it's behind a panel in the wall?"

"That's it."

Her eyes in their return journey had reached the great wooden fireplace. Although she did not know it, it was a fine specimen of old carving. What she did notice were the rounded posts which served as pillars. There were four, two longer and two shorter, each supporting a shelf on which there were ornaments. She wondered if the posts would turn. Probably something recurred to her mind which she had read about a movable post, though she could not have said just what it was or where she had read it. She had a notion that she would try if the posts in the fireplace turned, when she was stopped by a remark which came from the man in the bed.

"You're looking in the wrong place; so as I don't want your search to occupy you days, I'll tell you where it is." Even as he spoke it struck her--rather as a vague suspicion than anything else--that he did not want her to pay too much attention to the fireplace. She waited for him to continue, which he did at once. "You see the bracket in the corner on my left. Go to it. Take down the vase which stands upon it, then lift the bracket out of its socket." She did as he told her. "You see the boss just at the top of the socket. That releases the catch. Press it, then slide upwards that part of the panel which is immediately at your right."

Again she followed his directions. A portion of the woodwork, three or four inches wide, and about a foot in length, yielding to her touch, disclosed an open space behind.

"There's an envelope in it, a blue envelope; take it out."

There was an envelope, apparently nothing else. On the front was an inscription, whose crabbed characters had apparently been written by a feminine hand. "This envelope contains Cuthbert Grahame's will, and is not to be opened till after his death." The two flaps at the back were secured by big red seals.

"Never mind what it says. I'm Cuthbert Grahame, and I tell you to open the envelope, although I don't happen to be dead. Take out the paper which you'll find inside. Read it; you can read it aloud if you like."

She read it aloud. The handwriting was identical with the cramped caligraphy on the envelope.

"'I give and bequeath all the property of which I die possessed, both in real and personal estate, to Margaret Wallace, absolutely, for her sole use and benefit.--CUTHBERT GRAHAME. Witnesses, NANNIE FORESHAW, DAVID TWELVES, M.D., Edin.'"

With the exception of a date at the top that was all the paper contained.

"That is the will you broke by marrying me, or, if you prefer it, which I broke by marrying you. There isn't much to be said for the phraseology--it wasn't drafted in a lawyer's office. Nannie wrote it down to my dictation--at that table over by the window there. She doesn't write a very excellent fist, but it'll serve. That's as sound a will as if it had been drawn by a council of lawyers, and, to the lay mind, a good deal plainer than they'd have made it."

"Do you mean to say that what's on this paper is enough to put Margaret Wallace into undisputed possession of a quarter of a million of money?"

"It would have been if I hadn't married you; my marriage has made it so much waste-paper. You may tear it up, or keep it if you please; it makes no difference. I intend to make another will."

"What are you going to put in it?"

"Exactly what's in that, only the date will be different. It's the date in that which renders it nugatory."

"Aren't you going to leave me anything?"

"Why should I?"

"Dr. Twelves told me that if I married you I should have twenty thousand pounds."

"I'm not responsible for what Dr. Twelves may assert."

"You are--in a way, and you know it. Because he only brought me up so that you might die in peace, and, I expect, at your own express command."

Mr. Grahame was silent, possibly considering her words.

"A cheque for a hundred pounds would amply repay you for what you've done--or I might make it a hundred guineas."

"A hundred guineas! Listen to me--you're my husband."

"You've observed that on some previous occasion."

"And I'm your wife."

"That also has already become ancient history."

"I want you to understand just the way in which I see it. I'm the mistress of this house, and no one sets foot in it--or in your room--without my express sanction and approval."

"Won't any one? We shall see."

"We shall see! I'll write you just the will you want, as Nannie did, if you'll let me add a sentence leaving me--say, five thousand pounds. It ought to be more--twenty thousand was what Dr. Twelves promised--and you can make it as much more as you like, but I'll do it if you make it that." As, when she stopped, he was silent, she again went on: "If you don't let me add such a sentence you shall make no will at all--as sure as I'm alive I swear you shan't. I'll have my bed brought in here to stop you doing it at night--you may trust me to take care you don't do it by day. As your wife I've my rights, and you're a helpless man. I mean to take advantage of my rights--to the fullest possible extent!--and of your helplessness. You ought to know by now that in such a matter I'm the sort of woman that keeps her word."

"I have a sort of notion that you might do your best in that direction--from what I've seen--and heard--of you."

"You can bet on it!"

"Let me follow you clearly. Am I to understand that you will draw up yourself a will identical in all respects with the one you have in your hand, if I allow you to add an additional clause by which you are to benefit to the extent of five thousand pounds?"

"That's what you're to understand--just that."

"And that you'll assist me to sign it in the presence of two witnesses?"

"I'll assist you all I can."

"I'll think it over. Five thousand pounds is a deal of money for what you've done, and for the sort of woman you are; but--I'll think it over. When would you do it?"

"If you say the word I'll do it right now."

There was a considerable pause, then he repeated his former observation:--

"I'll think it over." After a pause he added: "Put back that miniature underneath my pillow--this time gently, if you please. Close the panel; replace the bracket and the vase. You may take the will with you if you like, so that you may get it well into your head. I'm tired--I've talked enough. I want to be still--and think."

Chapter 9 THE SLIDING PANEL

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