“I will tell you what I cannot do—­and that is to accept your view of the disappearance of the codicil,” said Lady Verner.  “It does not stand to reason that your uncle would cause a codicil to be made, with all the haste and parade you speak of, only to destroy it afterwards.  Depend upon it, you are wrong.  He never took it.”

“It does appear unlikely,” acquiesced Lionel, after some moments of deliberation.  “It was not likely, either, that he would destroy it in secret; he would have done it openly.  And still less likely, that he would have addressed me as his successor in dying, and given me charges as to the management of the estate, had he left it away from me.”

“No, no; no, no!” emphatically returned Lady Verner.  “That codicil has been stolen, Lionel.”

“But, by whom?” he debated.  “There’s not a servant in the house would do it; and there was no other inmate of it, save myself.  This is my chief difficulty.  Were it not for the total absence of all other suspicion, I should not for a moment entertain the thought that it could have been my uncle.  Let us leave the subject, mother.  It seems to be an unprofitable one, and my head is weary.”

“Are you going to give the codicil tamely up for a bad job, without further search?” asked Lady Verner.  “That I should live—­that I should live to see Sibylla West’s children inherit Verner’s Pride!” she passionately added.

Sibylla West’s children!  Lionel had enough pain at his heart, just then, without that shaft.  A piercing shaft truly, and it dyed his brow fiery red.

“We have searched already in every likely or possible place that we can think of; to-morrow morning, places unlikely and impossible will be searched,” he said, in answer to his mother’s question.  “I shall be aided by the police; our searching is nothing compared with what they can do.  They go about it artistically, perfected by practice.”

“And—­if the result should be a failure?”

“It will be a failure,” spoke Lionel, in his firm conviction.  “In which case I bid adieu to Verner’s Pride.”

“And come home here; will you not, Lionel?”

“For the present.  And now, mother, that I have told you the ill news, and spoiled your rest, I must go back again.”

Spoiled her rest!  Ay, for many a day and night to come.  Lionel disinherited!  Verner’s Pride gone from them for ever!  A cry went forth from Lady Verner’s heart.  It had been the moment of hope which she had looked forward to for years; and, now that it was come, what had it brought?

“My own troubles make me selfish,” said Lionel, turning back when he was half out at the door.  “I forgot to tell you that Jan and Decima inherit five hundred pounds each.”

“Five hundred pounds!” slightingly returned Lady Verner.  “It is but of at piece with the rest.”

He did not add that he had five hundred also, failing the estate.  It would have seemed worse mockery still.