“No, no, not now. Please don’t talk to me now. I am so miserable,” was Magdalen’s reply, and with that Mrs. Walter Scott was obliged to be content, until she found herself alone with her son at the dinner table. Dismissing the servant the moment dessert was brought in, she asked him abruptly “what had transpired between him and Magdalen to affect her so strangely.” Frank’s face was very pale, and he betrayed a good deal of agitation as he asked in turn what Magdalen herself had said. He had a kind of intuition that if his mother knew of the will, no power on earth could keep her quiet. He believed she liked Magdalen, but he knew she liked money better; and he was alarmed lest she should discover his secret, and be the instrument of his losing what seemed more and more desirable as one obstacle after another was thrown in his way. Mrs. Irving repeated all that had passed between herself and Magdalen, and then Frank breathed more freely, and told on his part what he thought necessary to tell. “Magdalen had been a good deal excited,” he said, “and had asked for a week in which to consider the matter, and he had granted it. And mother,” he added, “please let her alone, and not bother her with questions, and don’t mention me to her above all things. ’Twill spoil everything.” Frank had finished his pudding by this time, and without waiting for his mother’s answer he left the dining room and went at once to his own chamber, where he passed the entire evening, thinking of the strange discovery which had been made, wondering what Magdalen’s final decision would be, and occasionally sending a feeling of longing and regret after the fortune he was giving up. CHAPTER XXII. MRS. WALTER SCOTT AND THE WILL. Roger came from New York the next evening. He could not stay from Millbank any longer. He had made up his mind to face the inevitable. He would make the best of it if Magdalen accepted Frank, and if she did not, he would speak for himself at once. Roger was naturally hopeful, and something told him that his chance was not lost forever, that Frank was not so sure of Magdalen. He could not believe that he had been so deceived or had misconstrued her kind graciousness of manner toward himself. A thousand little acts of hers came back to his mind and confirmed him in the belief that unless she was a most consummate coquette, he was not indifferent to her. On reaching Belvidere, he went straight to Millbank without stopping at the office. He was impatient to see Magdalen, but she was not on the steps to meet him as was her custom when he returned from New York or Boston, and only Mrs. Walter Scott’s bland voice greeted him as he came in. “Magdalen was sick with one of her neuralgic headaches,” she said, “and had not left her room that day.”