What could have become of it? The envelope had been there, that she knew. Only a week ago she had seen it in the top drawer of her desk. She would stake her oath that she had not removed it. Vague disquietude took possession of her. Tony had always been honest, and of Melvina's integrity there could be no question. As for Ellen, had she not herself put the will into the girl's keeping--as a weapon with which to meet this very emergency? It was incredible, preposterous to assume that she had taken it back, especially when one considered her helplessness to do so unaided. That solution might as well be dismissed as ridiculous. The paper was lost, that was all there was to it. Lost! In her own absent-mindedness, or in a moment of confusion and weariness, she had either accidentally destroyed it, or she had removed it from its customary place to a safer spot and forgotten where she had put it. Yet, after all, how foolish it was of her to worry. Doubtless Mr. Benton had a copy of the document, and if she made full confession of her stupidity he would know what to do. Didn't lawyers always keep copies of every legal paper they drew up? They must of course do so. Therefore without breathing a word of her troubles to the Howes--not even to Martin--she set forth to the village, her dreams of redecorating the house being thrust, for the time being, entirely into the background by this disquieting happening. Mr. Benton was alone in his stuffy little office when she arrived. Evidently his professional duties were not pressing, for he was hunched up over a small air-tight stove and amid a smudge of tobacco smoke was reading "Pickwick Papers." At the entrance of a client, however, and this client in particular, he rose in haste, and slipping simultaneously into his alpaca coat and his legal manner--the two seemed to be a one-piece garment--held out his hand with a mixture of solicitude and pleasure. "My dear Miss Webster," he began. "I hope you are well. You have sustained a great loss since I last beheld you, a great loss." He drew forward a second armchair similar to the one in which he had been sitting and motioned Lucy to accept it. "Your aunt was a worthy woman who will be profoundly missed in the community," he continued in a droning voice. Lucy did not answer. In fact the lawyer did not seem to expect she would. He was apparently delivering himself of a series of observations which came one after the other in habitual sequence, and which he preferred should not be interrupted. "Death, however, is the common lot of mankind and must come to us all," he went on in the same singsong tone, "and I hope that in the thought of your devotion to the deceased you will find comfort." Having now terminated the introduction with which he was accustomed to preface his remarks on all such occasions, he regarded the girl in the chair opposite him benignly.