“Make the offer as large as you like, Minna,” Varian said, but not unkindly, “for you’ll never be called upon to pay it. Why, child, there’s no hope. I don’t want to be brutal, but really, Minna, dear, you oughtn’t to buoy yourself up with these false hopes, that never can be realized.” “Look here, Herbert, what do you think happened to my child? Who do you think killed Fred?” “Since you ask me, Minna, I must say, in all honesty, that I can’t see any possible theory or any imaginable explanation except that Betty shot her father, and then shot herself.” “Where is she, then?” “Hidden in some secret cupboard in this house, that she knew of, but that we haven’t yet found.” “I can see, Herbert,” Minna spoke slowly, “how you can believe that, because, as you say, you can’t think of any other case. But I know,—I _know_ Betty never shot her father. I know that,—and I shall yet prove it.” “But, Minna, there must have been more enmity between Fred and Betty than you know of, to make him leave the Varian pearls to Eleanor.” “That is incredible,” Minna mused. “I can’t understand that and I shouldn’t believe it, if it were not right there in Fred’s own handwriting. I haven’t seen the pearls for some years. I’ve been too much of an invalid to wear them often, and they’ve stayed in the safe deposit for the last five or six years. But I meant Betty should wear them next winter. Of course, I was sure Fred would leave them to her in his will. I can’t understand it! It isn’t so much the loss of the value that affects me, as the appalling fact that he wanted to leave them away from Betty. As you say, there must have been something between those two,—something desperate that I don’t know about.” “But what could there be?” Janet said, a blank wonder on her face. “That’s the very point,” said Minna. “I know there has never been any special or particular ground for disagreement between those two except as to the matter of Betty’s getting married,—or engaged. Fred never would consent to that. But of course he would have done so, later. He didn’t approve of very early marriages,—but more, I think, he dreaded the idea of Betty’s going away from us.” “Yet that only proves a special and even selfish fatherly love,” Varian said, “and in that case, why take the pearls away from her?” “I can’t understand it,” said Minna again; “it is too amazing! He adored Betty, and what ever possessed him to give the pearls to Eleanor,—he liked Eleanor, as we all do, but he never seemed especially attached to her. Not to put her ahead of Betty, anyway!” “Of course she shall never take the pearls,” said Janet, decidedly. “I think Fred was temporarily out of his mind when he made that will, or he was temporarily angry at Betty. When is it dated?” “That’s the strange part,” said Minna. “He made that will ten years ago.” “When Betty was only about ten years old! He couldn’t have been angry at the child then!”