When Isabel left Cuthbert Grahame's room her brain was in a tumult. She had so much of which to think that she found it hard to think at all. The discovery that his wealth was so altogether beyond anything of which she had dreamed as possible; the unearthing of his will--from such a hiding-place; the facts she had learned of Margaret Wallace, and which she had herself embroidered--these things were in themselves enough to occupy her mind to its full capacity for some time to come. Yet they were far from being all she had to think about. The miniature, in its jewelled setting--especially the jeweled setting!--was likely to be a subject of covetous contemplation until--well, until something had happened to it, or to her. Then there were the pillars in the fireplace. Something--she could not have told what--had filled her with the conviction that the recess behind the sliding panel was not the only hiding-place the room contained. She was possessed by a desire to examine those four rounded posts--to examine them closely--to ascertain whether in their construction there was anything peculiar. But beyond and above all these sufficient causes for mental agitation there was still another, one far greater--the will she might have to draft, which she felt certain she would be asked to draft. The idea which she had at the back of her head, which had prompted her suggestion, was of such a character that it almost frightened her. Like Cuthbert Grahame, she wanted time and opportunity for thought. She had it in contemplation to risk everything upon the hazard of a single throw--everything, in the widest sense of that comprehensive word. To put her notion into execution needed courage of a diabolical kind. Failure involved utter and eternal ruin. Success, on the other hand, would bring in its train all the pleasures of which she had scarcely dared to dream. On her return from her walk, having learned that Gregory Lamb had not put in the appearance she had feared, she had sent the two maids on an errand. They were raw, country wenches, ignorant, slow-witted. It seemed hardly likely that, under any circumstances, she would find them dangerous, yet she was strongly of opinion that it was advisable, if, as was possible, the deserted Gregory did call, that she should be the person to receive him. Nannie was still confined to her room, so that Isabel had but to be rid of the underlings to have practically the whole house at her mercy. It has been said that small things make great generals, since it is the eye for trivial details which wins big battles. The little act of foresight which prompted Isabel Lamb to clear the premises of that pair of Scotch wenches not impossibly changed the whole course of her life--not because what she had foreseen happened; what actually occurred she had not even looked for.