Then Magdalen _did_ stamp her foot, and coming close to him, said, “Don’t drive me mad with your stupidity, Frank Irving. You know as well as I that I have found what when a child you once asked me to search for,—you to whom Roger was so kind,—you, who would deal so treacherously with Roger in his own house; and I promised I would do it,—I, who was ten times worse than you. I was a beggar whom Roger took in, and I’ve wounded the hand that fed me. I have found the will; but, Frank Irving, if I had guessed what it contained I would have plucked out both my eyes before they should have looked for it. You deceived me. You said it gave you a _part_,—only a part. You told me false, and I hate you for it.” She was mad now with her excitement, which increased as she raved on, and she looked so white and terrible, with the fire flashing out in gleams from her dark eyes, that Frank involuntarily shrank back from her at first, and kept out of reach of the hands which made so fierce gestures toward him as if they would do him harm. Then as he began to recover himself, and from her words get some inkling of the case, he drew her gently to him, saying as he did so, “Magdalen, you wrong me greatly. Heaven is my witness that I always meant to give you the same impression of the will which I received from my mother, though really and truly I never had much idea that there was one, and am as much astonished to find there is as you can be. I have not read it yet, and I am not responsible for what there is in it. I knew nothing of it, had nothing to do with it; please don’t blame me for what I could not help.” There was reason in what he said, and Magdalen saw it, and softened toward him as she replied, “Forgive me, Frank, if in my excitement I said things which sounded harshly, and blamed you for what you could not help. But, oh! Frank, I am _so_ sorry for Roger, poor Roger. Say that you won’t wrong him. Be merciful; be kind to him as he has been to you.” Frank’s perceptions were not very acute, but he would have been indeed a fool if in what Magdalen said he had failed to detect a deeper interest in Roger than he had thought existed. He did detect it, and a fierce pang of jealousy shot through his heart as he began to see what the obstacle was which stood between himself and Magdalen. “I do not understand why you should be so distressed about Roger, or beg of _me_ to be merciful,” he said; but Magdalen interrupted him with a gesture of impatience. “Read that paper and you will know what I mean. You will see that it makes Roger a beggar, and gives you all his fortune. He has nothing,—nothing comparatively.”