“Yes. He has crept like a thief into the house in which his uncle lies dead, and has introduced some document—a will of his own fabrication, no doubt—in the place of the genuine will left in Mr. de Crespigny’s private secrétaire.”
“How do you know this, Eleanor?” cried Gilbert Monckton.
“I know it because I was outside the window of the study when he changed the papers in the cabinet, and because I have the real will in my possession.”
“It is a lie!” shouted Launcelot Darrell, starting to his feet, “a damnable lie, the real will——”
“Was burnt, as you think, Mr. Darrell; but you are mistaken, the document which your friend, Monsieur Victor Bourdon, burnt was a paper which you dropped out of the secrétaire while you were searching for the will.”
“And where is the genuine document, Eleanor?” Gilbert asked.
“Here,” answered his wife, triumphantly.
She put her hand into her pocket. It was empty. The will was gone.
CHAPTER XLV.
AT SEA.
The will was gone. Eleanor tried to think how or where she could have lost it. It might have dropped from her pocket, perhaps. That was the only solution of the mystery that presented itself to her mind. The open pocket of her dress might have been caught by one of the laurel boughs as she crouched upon the ground, and when she rose the paper had dropped out. There was no other way in which she could have lost it. She had been so absorbed in the watch she had kept on Launcelot Darrell, as to forget the value of the document which she had thrust carelessly into her pocket. Her father’s letter and Launcelot Darrell’s sketch were still safe in the bosom of her dress; but the will, the genuine will, in place of which the young man had introduced some fabrication of his own, was gone.