How did you know
her first intentions--have there been other letters?"
"I suppose so," he replied, coloring slightly, "but what a lawyer you
are! I scarcely know how I got the idea, to be frank with you; it may be
incorrect after all, but Evelyn will tell you every thing, of course,
when she comes."
"Let me see the codicil again, Mr. Bainrothe," and I examined it once
more closely, as if by some fascination I could not resist. I remarked
only one peculiarity in the document. One word was written in a cramped
manner, as though space had been wanting--yet much of the sheet of paper
on which it appeared was unoccupied--this was the word "thirty," at the
beginning of the enumeration of moneys, for thirty thousand pounds
(repeated below in figures) was the sum set forth in the codicil as the
bequest of the Lady Frances Pomfret to her niece Evelyn Erle! The five
numerals that represented the same idea as the written words occupied
half of the last portion of the last line, and seemed to my invidious
eyes to make an ostentatious display of the power that may lie in a
cipher, or an array thereof.
I gloated over the record, with something perhaps of that spirit which
may have lurked in my blood, from the time of Jacob, and which, so far,
had not evinced itself, except perhaps on that occasion when my ear
thrilled to the music of falling gold.
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