"It was no doubt there. A document written at the request of Mrs. Trevlyn; appointing me guardian to the two children. What did you do with it?"
"I?" returned Chattaway, speaking with apparent surprise, and looking full at Miss Diana with an unmoved face. "I did nothing with it. I don't know anything about it."
"You must have taken it out and suppressed it," observed Miss Diana.
"I never saw it or heard of it," obstinately persisted Chattaway. "Why should I? You might have been their appointed guardian, and welcome, for me: you have chiefly acted as guardian. I tell you, Diana, I neither saw nor heard of it: you need not look so suspiciously at me."
"Is he telling the truth?" thought Miss Diana, and her keen eyes were not lifted from Mr. Chattaway's face. But that gentleman was remarkably inscrutable, and never appeared more so than at this moment.
"If he did not do anything with it," continued Miss Diana in her train of thought, "what could have become of the thing? Where can it be?"
CHAPTER XXX
MR. CHATTAWAY COMES TO GRIEF
A few days passed on, and strange rumours began to be rife in the neighbourhood. Various rumours, vague at the best; but all tending to one point—the true heir was coming to his own again. They penetrated even to the ears of Mr. Chattaway, throwing that gentleman into a state not to be described. Some said a later will of the Squire's had been found; some said a will of Joe Trevlyn's; some that it was now discovered the estate could only descend in the direct male line, and consequently it had been Rupert's all along. Chattaway was in a raging fever; it preyed upon him, and turned his days to darkness. He seemed to look upon Rupert with the most intense suspicion, as if it were from him alone—his plotting and working—that the evil would come. He feared to trust him out of his sight; to leave him alone for a single instant. When he went to Blackstone he took Rupert with him; he hovered about all day, keeping Rupert in view, and brought him back in the evening.