"She shall not have it," she almost hissed; "nor shall she have _him_ much longer. Yes, I'll burn it I'll teach her not to try conclusions with me!" At that moment her meditations were interrupted. The door opened, and her husband, pale and short of breath, literally burst into the room. Their eyes met. Instinctively she knew that _he_ knew. Without a moment's hesitation she threw the will into the fire. Catching her round the waist he flung her quickly to one side and rescued it. "Just in time," he panted; "only just in time!" CHAPTER VI. SOME MUTUAL COMPLIMENTS AND A CONFESSION. In silence husband and wife stared at each other--she as furious with anger at discovery as with the knowledge that therewith all chance of her retaining wealth and position was at an end; he, astonished at the utter want of scruple, at the horrid immorality in the nature of the woman whom he had chosen to bear his name. It was as much as he could do to contain himself. Every instinct within him revolted at the cowardly criminality at which he had caught her red-handed. He wondered she had not been afraid, if only of her own skin. "Do you realise what I have saved you from?" he asked sternly; "that but for the innocent betrayal of you by that little boy downstairs, you would now be a common felon and answerable to the law--_you_, my wife, the mistress of Thorpe Manor! Hilda, speak--for God's sake speak." For some moments she did not answer. One feeling now had come uppermost in her--the feeling of hate and loathing for Miriam, intensified by the knowledge of her husband's admiration for her, while she, his wife, stood debased utterly in his eyes. The whole fury of her puny vindictive nature was striving to be let loose. At last she answered him. "I have nothing to say," she said, "beyond this--that I am glad at last you know your _friend_ for what she is--that even if your wife, as you say, was in danger of jeopardising her liberty, the pure, beautiful, saintly creature whom you so admire _has_ done so long ago, since she is nothing but a common thief!" "Hilda, how dare you! Upon my word, I begin to think you've lost your senses." "Indeed; you'll find that whatever I may have lost, I still have _them_. You must allow me to repeat that your friend is a common thief, and therefore a criminal. She stole this will." "_She stole that will?_--why, woman, how can you say such a thing. Mrs. Arkel is the soul of honour." "I thought you'd be surprised. Evidently Dicky didn't tell you everything. As it happens, I myself saw it abstracted by him quite accidentally this afternoon from some false bottom, or rather, top, of her work-box, which no doubt has proved eminently useful to her before this, during her career."