She presently restored the five documents to the stout envelope, picked up her other belongings, and without so much as a glance at Pratt, left the room. She turned the key in the door and took it away with her. And now she went straight to a certain sitting-room which Mrs. Mallathorpe had tenanted by day ever since her illness. The final and most important stage of Esther's venture was at hand. Mrs. Mallathorpe sat at an open window, wearily gazing out on the park. Ever since her son's death she had remained in a more or less torpid condition, rarely talking to any person except Esther Mawson: it had been manifest from the first that her daughter's presence distressed and irritated her, and by the doctor's advice Nesta had gone to her as little as possible, while taking every care to guard her and see to her comfort. All day long she sat brooding--and only Esther Mawson, now for some time in her full confidence, knew that her brooding was rapidly developing into a monomania. Mrs. Mallathorpe, indeed, had but one thought in her mind--the eventual circumventing of Pratt, and the destruction of John Mallathorpe's will. She turned slowly as the maid came in and carefully closed the door behind her, and her voice was irritable and querulous as she at once began to complain. "You've never been near me for two hours!" she said. "Your dinner time was over long since! I might have been wanting all sorts of things for aught you cared!" "I've had something else to do--for you!" retorted Esther, coming close to her mistress. "Listen, now!--I've got it!" Mrs. Mallathorpe's attitude and manner suddenly changed. She caught sight of the packet of papers in the woman's hand, and at once sprang to her feet, white and trembling. Instinctively she held out her own hands and moved a little nearer to the maid. And Esther quickly put the table between them, and shook her head. "No--no!" she exclaimed. "No handling of anything--yet! You keep your hands off! You were ready enough to bargain with Pratt--now you'll have to bargain with me. But I'm not such a fool as he was--I'll take cash down, and be done with it." Mrs. Mallathorpe rested her trembling hands on the table and bent forward across it. "Is it--is it--really--the will?" she whispered hoarsely. Instead of replying in words, Esther, taking care to keep at a safe distance behind the table, and with the door only a yard or two in her rear, drew out the documents one by one and held them up. "The will!" she said. "Your letter to Pratt. The power of attorney. Two papers that he brought for you to sign. That's the lot! And now, as I said, we'll bargain." "Where is--he?" asked Mrs. Mallathorpe. "How--how did you get them? Does he know--did he give them up?"