He started to his feet.
Mr.Mool went on reading.

"'Free of legacy duty, to buy a mourning ring--"' "Impossible!" Ovid broke out.
Mr.Mool finished the sentence.

"'And my sister will understand the motive which animates me in making this bequest."' He laid the Will on the table, and ventured to look up.

At the same time, Ovid turned to his mother, struck by the words which had been just read, and eager to inquire what their meaning might be.
Happily for themselves, the two men never knew what the preservation of their tranquillity owed to that one moment of delay.
If they had looked at Mrs.Gallilee, when she was first aware of her position in the Will, they might have seen the incarnate Devil self-revealed in a human face.

They might have read, in her eyes and on her lips, a warning hardly less fearful than the unearthly writing on the wall, which told the Eastern Monarch of his coming death.