"Than Mr. Verner. She needn't leave Verner's Pride. He must." To expect any ideas but coarse ones from Roy, Tynn could not. But his attention was caught by the last suggestion. "Leave Verner's Pride?" slowly repeated Tynn. "Must he?--good heavens! must my master be turned from Verner's Pride?" "Where'll be the help for it?" asked Roy, in a confidential tone. "I tell you, Mr. Tynn, my heart's been a-bleeding for him ever since I heard it. _I_ don't see no help for his turning out. I have been a-weighing it over and over in my mind, and I don't see none. Do you?" Tynn looked very blank. He was feeling so. He made no answer, and Roy continued, blandly confidential still. "If that there codicil, that was so much talked on, hadn't been lost, he'd have been all right, would Mr. Verner. No come-to-life-again Fred Massingbird needn't have tried at turning him out. Couldn't it be hunted for again, Mr. Tynn?" Roy turned the tail of his eye on Tynn. Would his pumping take effect? Mrs. Tynn would have told him that her husband might be pumped dry, and never know it. She was not far wrong. Unsuspicious Tynn went headlong into the snare. "Where would be the good of hunting for it again--when every conceivable place was hunted for it before?" he asked. "Well, it was a curious thing, that codicil," remarked Roy. "Has it _never_ been heered on?" Tynn shook his head. "Never at all. What an awful thing this is, if it's true!" "It is true, I tell ye," said Roy. "You needn't doubt it. There was a report a short while agone that the codicil had been found, and Matiss had got it in safe keeping. As I sat here, afore you come up, I was thinking how well it 'ud have served Mr. Verner's turn just now, if it _was_ true." "It is not true," said Tynn. "All sorts of reports get about. The codicil has never been found, and never been heard of." "What a pity!" groaned Roy, with a deep sigh. "I'm glad I've told it you, Mr. Tynn! It's a heavy secret for a man to carry about inside of him. I must be going." "So must I," said Tynn. "Roy, are you sure there's no mistake?" he added. "It seems a tale next to impossible." "Well, now," said Roy, "I see you don't half believe me. You must wait a few days, and see what them days 'll bring forth. That Mr. Massingbird's back from Australia, I'll take my oath to. _I_ didn't believe it at first; and when young Duff was a-going on about the porkypine, I shook him, I did, for a little lying rascal. I know better now." "But how do you know it?" debated Tynn. "Now, never you mind. It's my business, I say, and nobody else's. You just wait a day or two, that's all, Mr. Tynn. I declare I am as glad to have met with you to-night, and exchanged this intercourse of opinions, as if anybody had counted me out a bag o' gold." "Well, good-night, Roy," concluded Tynn, turning his steps towards Verner's Pride. "I wish I had been a hundred miles off, I know, before I had heard it."