thoughts running away upon every side-avenue of conjecture, and as often returning to the frightful, remediless fact before her.  She was faint with sudden terror.  By degrees she calmed herself, wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, smiled at her fright, and sat down again, with an attempt at self-control, to look through the drawers thoroughly.  As she went on, the tremor returned, and before she had finished the fruitless search her heart beat so as to stop her breath; she gasped in an agony that the soul rarely feels more than once in this life.  She shut up the drawers, walked up and down the room, noticed with a shudder her own changed expression as she passed before the mirror, and strove in vain to give some order to her confused and tumultuous thoughts.  At length she sat down exhausted.  She was startled by a knock.  Opening the door, there in a newly-furbished suit, with clean linen, and a brown wig worn for the first time on his hitherto shining head, stood Theophilus Clamp.  He had even picked a blossom from the geranium in the hall and was toying with it like a bashful boy.

“A fine day, Ma’am!” said he, as he took a seat.

“Yes, very,” she answered, mechanically, scarcely looking up.

“The young folks have gone out to ride, I suppose.”

“Yes, Sir.”—­A pause, in which Mrs. Kinloch covered her face with her handkerchief.

“You don’t seem well, Ma’am.  Shall I call Lucy?”

“Lucy is gone,” she answered,—­quickly adding, “gone to her grandmother’s.”

“Well, that is singular.  I’ve been today to look at my land above the old lady’s house, and she asked me to send word to Lucy to come up and see her.”

“To-day?”

“Yes, Ma’am; not two hours ago.”

Mrs. Kinloch was rapidly revolving probabilities.  What interest had Lucy to interfere with her affairs?  As for Mildred, she was not to be thought of as prying into secrets; she was too innocent.  Hugh was too careless.  Who more than this man Clamp was likely to have done or procured the mischief?  “Have you given her the message?”

“Of course not, Ma’am,—­how could I?”

“Then you haven’t sent Lucy away on any errand?”

“Certainly not, Madam,” said the lawyer, beginning to wince under the cross-examination.  “Lucy’s gone, you say; didn’t she leave things all right,—­your papers, and—­and so forth?”

“Papers?  Lucy is not presumed to know that I have any papers; if any are missing, I’ll warrant they are in the hands of some one who knows at least enough to read them.”

“She suspects me,” thought the lawyer, “but can’t have discovered that hers are only copies; they’re too well done.”  He then added aloud, “Perhaps, Mrs. Kinloch, if you had honored me, your associate in the administration of the estate, with your confidence touching the private papers you speak of, I might have saved you some trouble in keeping them.”