Once more the girl’s wits had been her salvation. As the lawyer finished the short will and sat looking quietly at the neat sheets, wherein he and Miles Cylmer were executors with the woman whose past they knew, Mrs. Trelane rose to her feet. Her ghastly pallor, her statuesque quiet, were magnificent as she faced them, only her eyes were not on theirs. “Cristiane,” she said very gently, “this has surprised me, and you, too! If you do not want me to live here and try to make you happy, say so. And Mr. Bolton can perhaps make some other arrangement.” Both men gasped stupidly in their amazement. The lawyer’s distrust of her was already shaken--it vanished utterly at her words. Cylmer could have killed her for daring to speak and propose what she knew could not be done. And yet, as his eyes fell on Ismay, he could not help feeling relief at the knowledge that she was not to be turned out as she had foreseen. In the silence Cristiane spoke between her sobs. “No, no! Daddy wished it,” she cried out. “Oh, don’t go! I have no one else, and I--I’m so lonely.” She crossed swiftly to where the elder woman stood waiting, and flung her arms round her neck, where she stood faintly redolent of the peach-blossom which had sickened Miles Cylmer as she entered. “You won’t leave me! I would die without you and Ismay! Ismay, who is like my sister already.” Cristiane pleaded imploringly, and at the sight of her young innocence, as she clung to the woman, it was not in human nature that either of the men who looked on should repress a start. Cylmer kept down a furious word, somehow, but he could not keep from making a long step toward Cristiane, even though he knew he had no right to tear her from the woman she clasped so closely. Yet some one else was more sick than he at the sight, though Helen Trelane was her own mother. A touch gentle as velvet, more compelling than steel, somehow had drawn Cristiane a yard away. “Hush, dear!” Ismay said softly. “Everything shall be as you say. But let Mr. Bolton talk a little to mother.” She did not hold the girl; her touch was scarcely more innocent of evil than her mother’s; and at the sharp flash of gratitude in Miles Cylmer’s eyes her own were lowered angrily. “I suppose the will stands!” Mrs. Trelane was saying gently. “H’m! Yes--yes--of course!” Mr. Bolton returned. “If Cristiane did not approve I suppose it could be put in chancery and guardians appointed”--in his heart knowing it impossible. “But I do approve!” Cristiane cried imperiously. “It is what daddy wanted, and what I wish, too. I will not have his will questioned in courts.” All the wilfulness she had from her mother awoke in her; she looked at the old lawyer with cried-out eyes that yet were steady. “You are sure, Cristiane?” Cylmer said sternly. “Sure!”--with a flash of her spirit. “You hear her?” Mrs. Trelane, gentle still, spoke to Mr. Bolton. “You know that I stay, by her wish, not my own.” “By her wish!” he returned mechanically.