new dread which I find it difficult to name but which you will
understand when I say that it led me to give Mr. Barrows the warning of
which he has spoken. My brother--I cannot speak of him with
calmness--is a man to be feared, Miss Sterling. Not that I would not be
a match for him in all matters of open enmity; but in ways of secrecy
and deep dealing, he is master, and all the more to be dreaded that he
makes it impossible for one to understand him or measure the depths of
turpitude to which he would descend. When, therefore I heard him say he
should have that will back before it could pass into the hands of Mr.
Nicholls, I trembled; and as the night passed and morning came without
showing any diminution in the set determination of his expression, I
decided upon visiting Mr. Barrows, in the hope of influencing him to
return the will of his own accord. But I soon saw that in spite of the
weakness I detected in him there was small prospect of his doing this;
and turning my steps home again, I confronted my mother and my brother
and asked them what they meant to do; they told me, that is, they told
me partly; and I, with that worse dread in my soul, was fain to be
satisfied with the merely base and dishonorable scheme they meditated.
To take Mr. Barrows at a disadvantage, to argue with him, threaten him,
and perhaps awe him by place and surroundings to surrender to them the
object of their desires, did not seem to me so dreadful, when I thought
of what they might have done or might yet attempt to do if I stood in
their way too much. So, merely stipulating that they would allow me to
accompany them to the mill, I let matters take their course, and true
to my own secret desire to retain their confidence and so save him, and
if possible them, from any act that would entail consequences of a
really serious nature, I gave them my assistance to the extent of
receiving Mr. Barrows at the door and conducting him through the mill
to the room which my brother had designated to me as the one in which
they proposed to hold their conference.