Lady Verner's delicate features became crimson; before she could speak, they had assumed a leaden colour. "Don't play with me, Lionel," she gasped, an awful fear thumping at her heart that he was _not_ playing with her. "It cannot be left to the Massingbirds!" He sat down by her side, and gave her the history of the matter in detail. Lady Verner caught at the codicil, as a drowning man catches at a straw. "How could you terrify me?" she asked. "Verner's Pride is yours, Lionel. The codicil must be found." "The conviction upon my mind is that it never will be found," he resolutely answered. "Whoever took that codicil from the desk where it was placed, could have had but one motive in doing it--the depriving me of Verner's Pride. Rely upon it, it is effectually removed ere this, by burning, or otherwise. No. I already look upon the codicil as a thing that never existed. Verner's Pride is gone from us." "But, Lionel, whom do you suspect? Who can have taken it? It is pretty nearly a hanging matter to steal a will!" "I do not suspect any one," he emphatically answered. "Mrs. Tynn protests that no one could have approached the desk unseen by her. It is very unlikely that any one could have burnt it. They must, first of all, have chosen a moment when my uncle was asleep; they must have got Mrs. Tynn from the room; they must have searched for and found the keys; they must have unlocked the desk, taken the codicil, relocked the desk, and replaced the keys. All this could not be done without time, and familiarity with facts. Not a servant in the house--save the Tynns--knew the codicil was there, and they did not know its purport. But the Tynns are thoroughly trustworthy." "It must have been Mrs. Verner----" "Hush, mother! I cannot listen to that, even from you. Mrs. Verner was in her bed--never out of it; she knew nothing whatever of the codicil. And, if she had, you will, I hope, do her the justice to believe that she would be incapable of meddling with it." "She benefits by its loss, at any rate," bitterly rejoined Lady Verner. "Her son does. But that he does was entirely unknown to her. She never knew that Mr. Verner had willed the estate away from me; she never dreamed but that I, and no other, would be his successor. The accession of Frederick Massingbird is unwelcome to her, rather than the contrary; he has no right to it, and she feels that he has not. In the impulse of the surprise, she said aloud that she wished it had been left to me; and I am sure these were her true sentiments." Lady Verner sat in silence, her white hands crossed on her black dress, her head bent down. Presently she lifted it---- "I do not fully understand you, Lionel. You appear to imply that--according to your belief--no one has touched the codicil. How, then, can it have got out of the desk?"