"It was not likely, either, that he would destroy it in secret; he would have done it openly.

And still less likely, that he would have addressed me as his successor in dying, and given me charges as to the management of the estate, had he left it away from me." "No, no; no, no!" emphatically returned Lady Verner.

"That codicil has been _stolen_, Lionel." "But, by whom ?" he debated.

"There's not a servant in the house would do it; and there was no other inmate of it, save myself.

This is my chief difficulty.