To-night, as she lay waiting for her nephew, she touched a lower level of despair than even she had yet reached. She suspected that Roger would fail her. Janey had for the first time turned against her. Even Janey, who had always yielded to her, always, always, even she had opposed her--had actually refused to make the promise which was essential to the welfare of poor Harry after she herself was gone. And she felt that she was going, that she was being pushed daily and hourly nearer to the negation of all things, the silence, the impotence of the grave. She determined to act with strength while power to act still remained. Roger's reluctant step came up the oak staircase, and his tap on the door. "May I come in?" "Come in." He came in, and stood as if he were stuffed in the middle of the room, his eyes fixed on the cornice. "I hope you are feeling better, Aunt Louisa?" "I am still alive, as you see." Deep-rooted jealousy of Roger dwelt in her, had dwelt in her ever since the early days when her husband had adopted him against her wish when he had been left an orphan. She had not wanted him in her nursery. Her husband had always been fond of him, and later in life had leaned upon him. In the depths of her bitter heart Lady Louisa believed he had preferred his nephew to the two sons she had given him, Dick the ne'er-do-well, and Harry the latecomer--the fool. Roger moved his eyes slowly round the room, looking always away from the bed, till they fell upon the cat curled up in the arm-chair. "Holloa, puss!" he said. "Caught a mouse lately?" "Did you get the power of attorney?" came the voice from the bed. "No, Aunt Louisa." The bed-clothes trembled. "I told you not to come back without it." Roger was silent. "Had not Jane arranged everything?" "Everything." "And the doctor! Wasn't he there ready to witness it?" "Oh Lord! Yes. He was there." "Then I fail to understand why you came back without it." "Dick wasn't fit to sign," said Roger doggedly. "Didn't I warn you before you went that he had repeatedly told Jane that he could not attend to business, and that was why it was so important you should be empowered to act for him?--and the power of attorney was his particular wish." "Yes, you did. But I didn't know he'd be like that. He didn't know a thing. It didn't seem as if he _could_ have had a particular wish one way or the other. Aunt Louisa, he wasn't _fit_." "And so you set up your judgment against mine, and his own doctor's? I told you before you went, what you knew already, that he was not capable of transacting business, and that you must have the power; and you said you understood. And then you come back here and inform me that he was not fit, which you knew before you started." "No, no. You're wrong there." How like he was to her dead husband as he said that, and how she hated him for the likeness!