"I suppose so. Yesterday she came down and walked with me in the garden in the sunshine. She seemed pretty well then, but not strong. In the evening she shut herself up again." "I wish you would sit down, Annabel," I said, offering her a chair for the third time. "I would if I could stay. Mamma charged me to go straight back after leaving the message with you. Are you well?" she continued with hesitation. "You look harassed." "I am well, Annabel. But you have used the right word--I am harassed; terribly so." "Poor papa!" she sighed. "It has brought a world of work and care upon you, as well as of grief to us." "I should not mind work. But--we have had another loss, Annabel. A loss as mysterious as that of the gold; and far more important." "What is it?" she asked. "More money?" "No; I wish it were. A will, deposited in the safe there, has disappeared. I cannot even guess at the consequences; ruin probably to me and to one of our best clients. Not only that. If things are to vanish so unaccountably from our strongholds, we must have an enemy at work, and it is impossible to foresee where it may end." "How very strange! What was the will like? I mean, what did it look like? I have a reason for asking you." "It was a folded parchment. You saw your father's will, Annabel: it looked very much like that. Why do you ask?" "Because I remember papa's bringing home a parchment exactly like the one you describe. It was an evening or two before he died: the evening before I and mamma went to Hastings. We left on Saturday, so it must have been Friday. Do you think it could be the missing will?" "Oh no. I have known Mr. Brightman--though very rarely--take home deeds which required studying; but he was not likely to take home Sir Ralph Clavering's will. He made it himself, and knew every word it contained. Annabel, I did not intend to let out the name, but it will be safe with you." "Perfectly so; as safe as with yourself. I will not repeat it, even to mamma." "And what I shall do I cannot tell," I concluded, as I attended her down to the carriage. "I would give every shilling I possess to find it." More work, and then the afternoon came to an end, my dinner came up, and I was at liberty to enjoy a little rest. I had taken to the front room as my sitting-room, and should speedily remove the desk and iron safe into the other, making that exclusively a business-room, and seeing clients in it. After dinner, the fire clear, my reading-lamp lighted, I took up the newspaper. But for habits of order and self-denying rules, I should never have attained to the position I enjoyed. One of those rules was, never to read the _Times_ or any work of relaxation until my work was over for the day. I could then enjoy my paper and my cigar, and feel that I had earned both. I took up the _Times_, and almost the very first paragraph my eye fell upon was the following: