Mr. Withers smiled at his wife's vehemence. "There is still another reason why we cannot take the money. Ralph Conway has been as much defrauded as Mabel, and his mother, as you see by her letters, is determined not to sit down quietly under the wrong. What she means to do I have not the slightest idea, nor do I think that there is the most remote probability she will ever succeed in finding the will. Tallboys appears to have made a most thorough search of the house, and do what she will she cannot have any opportunity of searching as he has done. Still she clearly has something on her mind. She intends to make some attempt or other to discover the will, which, if found, will benefit Mabel equally with her son. Therefore we cannot but regard her as our friend and ally. Now, were we to accept the money for Mabel we should in fact be acquiescing, not only in the wrong done to her but in that done to Ralph. We should, in fact, be going over to the enemy. We could not take their money and even tacitly connive in her efforts to find the will." "I agree with you entirely, James. It would be impossible; only I do wish you had said all this before letting me be so foolish as to say that I thought we ought to take it." "You didn't say so, dear," Mr. Withers said smiling. "You only gave expression to the first natural thought of a mother that it would be a nice thing for Mabel. You had given the matter no further consideration than that, and I was quite sure that as soon as you thought the matter over you would see it in the same light that I do. But I think that before we send off our reply we should put the matter before Mabel herself. I have no doubt whatever what her answer will be, but at the same time she ought to know of the offer which has been made to her." CHAPTER IX. MR. TALLBOYS' VISITOR. Mr. Withers was fully justified in his conviction that there need be no doubt as to the view Mabel would take of the Miss Penfold's offer. The girl had hitherto been in entire ignorance both as to the will being missing, and of the interest she had in it. She was now called in from the garden, and was much surprised when her father told her to sit down, as he and her mother wished to have a serious talk with her. "Do you know, my little Mabel," he began, "that you have had a narrow escape of being an heiress?" "An heiress, papa! Do you mean of having a lot of money?" "Yes, of coming in some day to a fortune. Mr. Penfold some time ago confided to your mother and me his intention of dividing his property equally between Ralph Conway and yourself." "What! all the Penfold estates, papa, and the house and everything?" "Yes, my dear. Everything, including the large sum of money that has accumulated during the years Mr. Penfold has not been spending a third of his income." "Then if he meant that, papa, how is it that I am not going to be an heiress?"