"No, I left it with her. You had better remain, my little girl," the lawyer added to me, touching my arm with his black glove as I was essaying to quit the room. "The will concerns you. I asked your wife if I should take possession of it, but she preferred to keep it herself."
"I do not know where it can have been put, then," returned Mr. Edwin Barley, while his brother lifted his head in interest. "I have examined her desk and one or two of her drawers where she kept papers; but I have found no will."
"Perhaps you did not look particularly for a will, not knowing she had made one, and so it may have escaped your notice, sir," suggested the lawyer.
"Pardon me; it was the precise thing I looked for. I heard of your visit to my wife: not, however, until after her death; and it struck me that your coming might have reference to something of the sort. But I found no will; only a few pencilled words on a half-sheet of paper in her desk. Do you know where it was put?"
The lawyer turned to me. "Perhaps this little lady may know," he said. "She made one in the room when I was with Mrs. Edwin Barley, and may have seen afterwards where the will was placed."
Again I felt sick with apprehension: few children at my age have ever been so shy and sensitive. It seemed to me that all was coming out; at any rate, my share in it. But I spoke pretty bravely.
"You mean the paper that you left on my Aunt Selina's bed, sir? I put it in the cabinet; she directed me to do so."
"In the cabinet?" repeated Mr. Edwin Barley to me.
"Yes, sir. Just inside as you open it."
"Will you go with me to search for it?" said Mr. Edwin Barley to the lawyer. "And you can go into Miss Delves's parlour, Anne; little girls are better out of these affairs."