y transactions. The will,
however, must be, I think, in Doctors' Commons! Go there immediately,
Mr. Cramp; and--stay--I will go with you; there it is, and there are
the names of the witnesses."

"My dear lady!" expostulated the attorney, in the softest tones of his
soft voice, "I _have_ been there already. I wished to spare a lady of
your sensibility as much pain as possible; and so I went there myself,
with Mr. Alfred Bond's man of business, whom I happened to know; and I
was grieved--cut up, I may say, to the very heart's core, to hear what
he said; and he examined the document very closely too--very closely;
and, I assure you, spoke in the handsomest, I may say, the _very_
handsomest manner of you, of your character, and usefulness, and
generosity, and Christian qualities; he did indeed; but we have all
our duties to perform in this world; paramount things are duties, Miss
Bond, and his is a very painful one."

"What need of all these words to state a simple matter. Have you seen
the will?" said Sarah Bond.

"I have."

"Well, and what more is there to see, unless Mr. Alfred Bond denies
his relative's power to make a will?"

"Which, I believe he does not do. He says he never made a will; that
is all."

"But there _is_ the will," maintained Sarah Bond.

"I am very sorry to wound you; but cannot you understand?"

"Speak plainly if you can, sir," said Sarah Bond sternly; "speak
plainly if you can; I listen."

"He maintains, on the part of his client, that the will is a forgery."

"He maintains a falsehood, then," exclaimed Miss Bond, with a firm
determination and dignity of manner that astonished Mr. Cramp. "If
the will be forged, who is the forger? Certainly not my father; for
he inherited the property from his elder brother, who died insane. The
will is in _his_ favour, and not in my father's. Besides, neither of
them held any correspondence with the testator for twenty years; he
died abroad, and the will was sent to England after his death. Would
any one there do a gratuitous service to persons they had never
seen? Where could be the reason--the motive? How is it, that, till
now, Alfred Bond urged no claim. There are reasons," she continued,
"reasons to give the world. But I have within me, what passes all
reason--a feeling, a conviction, a true positive knowledge, that my
father was incapable of being a party to such a crime. He was a stern
man, loving money--I grant that--but honest in heart and soul. T