message, Mrs. Verner or Fred Massingbird
would write it. Of course, this will, disinheriting me, proves that my
staying away could not have been the cause of displeasure--it is dated
only the week after I went."

"Whatever may have been the cause, it is a grievous wrong inflicted on
you. He was my dear friend, and we have but now returned from laying him
in his grave, but still I must speak out my sentiments--that he had _no
right_ to deprive you of Verner's Pride."

Lionel knit his brow. That he thought the same; that he was feeling the
injustice as a crying and unmerited wrong, was but too evident. Mr.
Bitterworth had bent his head in a reverie, stealing a glance at Lionel
now and then.

"Is there nothing that you can charge your conscience with; no sin,
which may have come to the knowledge of your uncle, and been deemed by
him a just cause for disinheritance?" questioned Mr. Bitterworth, in a
meaning tone.

"There is nothing, so help me Heaven!" replied Lionel, with emotion. "No
sin, no shame; nothing that could be a cause, or the shade of a cause--I
will not say for depriving me of Verner's Pride, but even for my uncle's
displeasure."

"It struck me--you will not be offended with me, Lionel, if I mention
something that struck me a week back," resumed Mr. Bitterworth. "I am a
foolish old man, given to ponder much over cause and effect--to put two
and two together, as we call it; and the day I first heard from your
uncle that he had had good cause--it was what he said--for depriving you
of Verner's Pride, I went home, and set myself to think. The will had
been made just after John Massingbird's departure for Australia. I
brought before me all the events which had occurred about that same
time, and there rose up naturally, towering above every other
reminiscence, the unhappy business touching Rachel Frost.
Lionel"--laying his hand on the young man's shoulder and dropping his
voice to a whisper--"did _you_ lead the girl astray?"

Lionel drew himself up to his full height, his lip curling with
displeasure.

"Mr. Bitterworth!"

"To suspect you never would have occurred to me. I do not suspect you
now. Were you to tell me that you were guilty of it, I should have
difficulty in believing you. But it did occur to me that possibly your
uncle may have cast that blame on you. I saw no other solution of the
riddle. It could have been no light cause to induce Mr. Verner to
deprive you of Verner's Pride. He was not a ca