Ross scowled at his sister, made a hesitating, reluctant movement toward the steps; just then Matilda and Ellen appeared.  Adelaide saw that her mother had succeeded in getting through Matilda’s crust of sham and in touch with her heart.  At sight of her son Mrs. Whitney’s softened countenance changed—­hardened, Adelaide thought—­and she said to him eagerly:  “Any news, any letters?”

“This,” answered Ross explosively.  He jerked the letter from his pocket, gave it to his mother.

“You’ll excuse me—­Ellen—­Adelaide,” said Matilda, as she unfolded the paper with ringers that trembled.  “This is very important.”  Silence, as she read, her eager glance leaping along the lines.  Her expression became terrible; she burst out in a voice that was both anger and despair:  “No will!  He wasn’t just trying to torment me when he said he hadn’t made one.  No will!  Nothing but the draft of a scheme to leave everything to Tecumseh—­there’s your Hiram’s work, Ellen!”

Adelaide’s gentle pressure on her mother’s arm was unnecessary; it was too evident that Matilda, beside herself, could not be held responsible for anything she said.  There was no pretense, no “oversoul” in her emotion now.  She was as different from the Matilda of the luncheon table as the swollen and guttered face of woe in real life is different from the graceful tragedy of the stage.

“No will; what of it?” said Ellen gently.  “It won’t make the least difference.  There’s just you and the children.”

Adelaide, with clearer knowledge of certain dark phases of human nature and of the Whitney family, hastily interposed.  “Yes, we must go,” said she.  “Good-by, Mrs. Whitney,” and she put out her hand.

Mrs. Whitney neither saw nor heard.  “Ellen!” she cried, her voice like her wild and haggard face.  “What do you think of such a daughter as mine here?  Her father—­”

Janet, with eyes that dilated and contracted strangely, interrupted with a sweet, deprecating, “Good-by, Adelaide dear.  As I told you, I am leaving to-night—­”

There Ross laid his hand heavily on Janet’s shoulder.  “You are going to stay, young lady,” he said between his teeth, “and hear what your mother has to say about you.”  His voice made Adelaide shudder, even before she saw the black hate his eyes were hurling at his sister.

“Yes, we want you, Ellen, and you, Del, to know her as she is,” Mrs. Whitney now raged on.  “When she married, her father gave her a dowry, bought that title for her—­paid as much as his whole fortune now amounts to.  He did it solely because I begged him to.  She knows the fight I had to win him over.  And now that he’s gone, without making a will, she says she’ll have her legal rights!  Her legal rights!  She’ll take one-third of what he left.  She’ll rob her brother and her mother!”