"That is what I wish her to have--the free and absolute control of all I die possessed of." "Then you may be quite easy in your mind," said the lawyer.

"You have made that perfectly clear." Whereat Helmsley again said "Good afternoon," and again Mr.Owlett briefly responded, sweeping the money his client had paid him off his desk, and pocketing the same with that resigned air of injured virtue which was his natural expression whenever he thought of how little good hard cash a country solicitor could make in the space of twenty-four hours.

Helmsley, on leaving the office, returned at once to his lodging under the shadow of the Cathedral and resumed his own work, which was that of writing several letters to various persons connected with his financial affairs, showing to each and all what a grip he held, even in absence, on the various turns of the wheel of fortune, and dating all his communications from Exeter, "at which interesting old town I am making a brief stay," he wrote, for the satisfaction of such curiosity as his correspondents might evince, as well as for the silencing of all rumours respecting his supposed death.

Last of all he wrote to Sir Francis Vesey, as follows:-- "MY DEAR VESEY,--On this day, in the good old city of Exeter, I have done what you so often have asked me to do.

I have made my Will.