Apparently Mr. Piljoy had no more questions to put. After a glance round at the perplexed faces of his audience, he said: "Notwithstanding the very clear and straightforward statement with which Andry Luce has just favored us, the mystery of the unsigned will remains exactly where it was before. We seem no nearer a solution of it than we were at first, and I confess myself wholly at a loss to advise as to what step, if any, it behoves us to take next. Never in the whole of my experience have I been confronted with a state of affairs so puzzling and inexplicable." "Never heard tell of owt like it, dang me if I have!" exclaimed Sir James, who had a habit of lapsing into the vernacular now and again. "Licks cock-fighting all to bits, that it does," muttered Mr. Staniforth. The Vicar and Mr. Delafosse spoke together in low tones. So far Mrs. Bullivant had maintained an unbroken silence. Though more than once greatly tempted to do so, she had put a strong restraint upon herself, and had sat there with compressed lips listening to all that was said, passing through the whole gamut of feeling from hope to despair, and finally struck to the earth, almost, as it seemed, beyond recovery, by Mr. Piljoy's last words. There had been revealed to her a golden vision far exceeding her utmost dreams, but between her and it some malignant fiend had dug a shadowy gulf which he defied her to overpass. She had been vouchsafed a glimpse of Paradise, only to have the gates of pearl slammed in her face. It was maddening. Her very soul was aflame with impotent rage. She was tortured almost beyond endurance by the knowledge of all she had lost; of all that had slipped through her fingers, as at the bidding of a necromancer, before she had a chance of grasping it; of all that ought to have been hers, but was not! She could no longer keep silent. "It is very evident to me," she began, addressing herself directly to the lawyer, "that my helpless boy and I have been made the victims of a vile conspiracy. Whether you, sir, are in the secret of it or no I cannot say, but I give you warning that I shall lose no time in placing the affair in the hands of my solicitors, and that even if it cost me every shilling I have in the world, this foul attempt to defraud me and mine shall be unmasked, and the concocters of it brought to the bar of justice." She spoke with studied quietude and without any trace of passion, but her hearers felt that in those smooth accents there was a hidden venom far more dangerous than any mere outburst of feminine anger would have been. "A vile conspiracy!" burst forth the irate lawyer. "I would have you know, madame, that----" She stopped him with an imperious gesture. "I have said all I wish to say, and no empty protestations on your part will avail anything. Roguery has been at work and must be unmasked. It is enough that you know my intentions."