"Of course he can't," acquiesced the lawyer. "Why need you put yourself out about it?" Mr. Chattaway was wiping the moisture from his face. He sat looking at the lawyer. "I can't deny that it has troubled me," he said: "that it is troubling me still. What would my family do--my children--if we lost the Hold?" It was the lawyer's turn to look. He could not make out Chattaway. No power on earth, so far as his belief and knowledge went, could wrest Trevlyn Hold from its present master. Why, then, these fears? Were they born of nervousness? But Chattaway was not a nervous man. "Trevlyn Hold is as much yours as this hat"--touching the one at his elbow--"is mine," he resumed. "It came to you by legal bequest; you have enjoyed it these twenty years, and to deprive you of it is beyond human power. Unless," he added, after a pause, "unless indeed----" "Unless what?" eagerly interrupted Chattaway, his heart thumping against his side. "Unless--it was only an idea that crossed me--there should prove to be a flaw in Squire Trevlyn's will. But that's not probable." "It's impossible," gasped Chattaway, his fears taking a new and startling turn. "It's impossible that there could have been anything defective in the will, Flood." "It's next to impossible," acquiesced the lawyer; "though such mistakes have been known. Who drew it up?" "The Squire's solicitors, Peterby and Jones." "Then it's all right, you may be sure. Peterby and Jones are not men likely to insert errors in their deeds. I should not trouble myself about the matter." Mr. Chattaway sat in silence, revolving many things. How he wished he _could_ take the advice and not "trouble himself" about the matter! "What made you think there might be a flaw in the will?" he presently asked. "Nay, I did not think there was: only that it was just possible there might be. When a case is offered to me for consideration, it is my habit to glance at it in all its bearings. You tell me a stranger has made his appearance at Barbrook, avowing an intention of displacing you from Trevlyn Hold." "Well?" "Well, then, whilst you were speaking, I began to grasp that case, turn it about in my mind; and I see that there is no possible way by which you can be displaced, so far as I know and believe. You enjoy it in accordance with Squire Trevlyn's will, and so long as that will remains in force, you are safe--provided the will has no flaw in it." Mr. Chattaway sat biting his lips. Never for a moment in the wildest flight of fear had he glanced at the possibility of a flaw in the will. The idea now suggested by Mr. Flood was perhaps the most alarming that could have been presented to him. "If there were any flaw in the will," he began--and the very mention of the cruel words almost rent his heart in two--"could you detect it, by reading the will over?" "Yes," replied Flood. "Then let us go at once, and set this awful uncertainty at rest."