"
"Not an ordinary theft! What do you mean?"
"I have no doubt in my mind, Eleanor, that it was another attempt to
discover the will."
"Do you think so?" Eleanor said in an awed voice. "That is terrible.
But you said the men were engaged in packing up the candlesticks and
ornaments."
"Oh, I believe that was a mere blind. Of course they would wish us to
believe they were simply burglars, and therefore they acted as such to
begin with. But there has never been any attempt on the house during
the forty years we have lived here. Why should there be so now? If
Anna had not fortunately heard those men I believe that when they had
packed up a few things to give the idea that they were burglars, they
would have gone to the library and set to to ransack it and find the
will."
"But they would never have found it, Charlotte. It is too well hidden
for that."
"There is no knowing," Miss Penfold said gloomily. So long as it is in
existence we shall never feel comfortable. It will be much better to
destroy it."
"No, no!" Eleanor exclaimed. "We agreed, Charlotte, that there was no
reason why we should assist them to find it; but that is altogether a
different thing from destroying it. I should never feel happy again if
we did."
"As for that," Miss Penfold said somewhat scornfully, "you don't seem
very happy now.
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