"Yes, Sir."--A pause, in which Mrs. Kinloch covered her face with her handkerchief. "You don't seem well, Ma'am. Shall I call Lucy?" "Lucy is gone," she answered,--quickly adding, "gone to her grandmother's." "Well, that is singular. I've been today to look at my land above the old lady's house, and she asked me to send word to Lucy to come up and see her." "To-day?" "Yes, Ma'am; not two hours ago." Mrs. Kinloch was rapidly revolving probabilities. What interest had Lucy to interfere with her affairs? As for Mildred, she was not to be thought of as prying into secrets; she was too innocent. Hugh was too careless. Who more than this man Clamp was likely to have done or procured the mischief? "Have you given her the message?" "Of course not, Ma'am,--how could I?" "Then you haven't sent Lucy away on any errand?" "Certainly not, Madam," said the lawyer, beginning to wince under the cross-examination. "Lucy's gone, you say; didn't she leave things all right,--your papers, and--and so forth?" "Papers? Lucy is not presumed to know that I _have_ any papers; if any are missing, I'll warrant they are in the hands of some one who knows at least enough to read them." "She suspects me," thought the lawyer, "but can't have discovered that hers are only copies; they're too well done." He then added aloud, "Perhaps, Mrs. Kinloch, if you had honored me, your associate in the administration of the estate, with your confidence touching the private papers you speak of, I might have saved you some trouble in keeping them." "Very likely; but no one spoke of papers beside yourself," she replied, with a trace of sarcasm in the tone which ill suited the expression of her pallid face and drooping head. "I'm sorry to see you looking so careworn, Mrs. Kinloch," said he, with his blandest air. "I intended to bring up a topic more agreeable, it is to be hoped, than runaway house-maids or old documents." He rubbed his hands softly and turned his eyes with a glance meant to be tender towards the place where her chair stood; if he had been a cat, he would have purred the while. Mrs. Kinloch now, for the first time, observed the wig, the unusual look of tidiness, and, above all, the flower in his hand; she also saw the crucified smile that followed his last remark. "The ridiculous old fool!" thought she,--"what can he mean?" But to him she translated it,-- "What is the more agreeable topic?" "Really, you attack me like a lawyer. Don't you know, my dear Madam, how it confuses one to be sharply interrogated?" "It would be something novel to see you confused, Squire Clamp." "Pray, don't banter, Mrs. Kinloch. I hoped to find you in a more complaisant humor. There are topics which cannot be discussed with the square precision of legal rules,--thoughts that require sympathy before they can be expressed." And he dropped his eyes with a ludicrous sigh.