Lionel drew himself up to his full height, his lip curling with displeasure.
"Mr. Bitterworth!"
"To suspect you never would have occurred to me. I do not suspect you now. Were you to tell me that you were guilty of it, I should have difficulty in believing you. But it did occur to me that possibly your uncle may have cast that blame on you. I saw no other solution of the riddle. It could have been no light cause to induce Mr. Verner to deprive you of Verner's Pride. He was not a capricious man.'
"It is impossible that my uncle could have cast a shade of suspicion on me, in regard to that affair," said Lionel. "He knew me better. At the moment of its occurrence, when nobody could tell whom to suspect, I remember a word or two were dropped which caused me to assure him I was not the guilty party, and he stopped me. He would not allow me even to speak of defence; he said he cast no suspicion on me."
"Well, it is a great mystery," said Mr. Bitterworth. "You must excuse me, Lionel. I thought Mr. Verner might in some way have taken up the notion. Evil tales, which have no human foundation, are sometimes palmed upon credulous ears for fact, and do their work."
"Were it as you suggest, my uncle would have spoken to me, had it been only to reproach," said Lionel. "It is a mystery, certainly, as you observe; but that is nothing to this mystery of the disappearance of the codicil—"
"I am going, Lionel," interrupted Jan, putting his head round the room door.
"I must go, too," said Lionel, starting from the sideboard against which he had been leaning. "My mother must hear of this business from no one but me."
Verner's Pride emptied itself of its mourners, who betook themselves their respective ways. Lionel, taking the long crape from his hat, and leaving on its deep mourning band alone, walked with a quick step through the village. He would not have chosen to be abroad that day, walking the very route where he had just figured chief in the procession, but to go without delay to Lady Verner was a duty. And a duty was never willingly omitted by Lionel Verner.