sha'n't if I can help it; and, thank my stars, I'm a
dour woman to reckon with. If he comes, he comes over my old bones,
child. I've been overhauling everything of Marmy's, I can tell you, to
checkmate the boy if I can; but I've found nothing yet, and till I've
satisfied myself on that point, I'll hold the fort still, if I have to
barricade that pasty-faced scoundrel of a nephew of mine out by piling
the furniture against the front door-- I will, as sure as my name's
Georgina Fawley!'

'I know you will, dear,' I assented, kissing her, 'and so I shall
venture to leave you, while I go out to institute another little
enquiry.'

'What enquiry?'

I shook my head. 'It's only a surmise,' I said, hesitating. 'I'll tell
you about it later. I've had time to think while I've been coming back
in the train, and I've thought of many things. Mount guard till I
return, and mind you don't let Lord Southminster have access to
anything.'

'I'll shoot him first, dear.' And I believe she meant it.

I drove on in the same cab to Harold's solicitor. There I laid my fresh
doubts at once before him. He rubbed his bony hands. 'You've hit it!' he
cried, charmed. 'My dear madam, you've hit it! I never did like that
will. I never did like the signatures, the witnesses, the look of it.
But what could I do? Mr. Tillington propounded it. Of course it wasn't
my business to go dead against my own client.'

'Then you doubted Harold's honour, Mr. Hayes?' I cried, flushing.

[Illustration: NEVER! HE ANSWERED. NEVER!]

'Never!' he answered. 'Never! I felt sure there must be some mistake
somewhere, but not any trickery on--your husband's part. Now, _you_
supply the right clue. We must look into this, immediately.'

He hurried round with me at once in the same cab to the court. The
incriminated will had been 'impounded,' as they call it; but, under
certain restrictions, and subject to the closest surveillance, I was
allowed to examine it with my husband's solicitor, before the eyes of
the authorities. I looked at it long with the naked eye and also with a
small pocket lens. The paper, as I had noted before, was the same kind
of foolscap as that which I had been in the habit of using at my office
in Florence; and the typewriting--was it mine? The longer I looked at
it, the more I doubted it.

After a careful examination I turned round to our solicitor. 'Mr.
Hayes,' I said, firmly, having arrived at my conclusion, 'this is _not_
the document I type