CHAPTER XX.
DRY WORK.
Certainly Lionel Verner's star was not in the ascendant--though Lucy Tempest had used the words in jest.

His love gone from him; his fortune and position wrested from him; all become the adjuncts of one man, Frederick Massingbird.

Serenely, to outward appearance, as Lionel had met the one blow, so did he now meet the other; and none, looking on his calm bearing, could suspect what the loss was to him.

But it is the silent sorrow that eats into the heart; the loud grief does not tell upon it.
An official search had been made; but no trace could be found of the missing codicil.

Lionel had not expected that it would be found.