ain a full account of the value of this American property, where it
lay, and how it was occupied. It was in the midst of these inquiries
came a great financial crash, and my agent was obliged to fly. At first
he went to Malta; he came back, but, after a few weeks, he set out for
the States. He was fully in possession of the circumstances of this
property, and Clara's right to it, and equally so of my determination
that she should never inherit it. We had, on one of the evenings he was
here, a long conversation on the subject, and he cunningly asked me,--

"'How was the property settled in reversion?'

"It was a point I never knew, for I never saw H.'s will.

"'The will was made four years before his death; might he not have made
a later one on his death-bed?--might he not have bequeathed the estate
in reversion to yourself in case she died?--might she not have died?'

"All these he asked, and all of them had been my own unceasing thoughts
for years back. It was a scheme I had planned and brooded over days and
nights long. It was to prepare the road for it that I sent away Clara,
and, under the name of Stocmar, had her inscribed at the Conservatoire
of Milan. Was it that Trover had read my secret thoughts, or had he
merely chanced upon them by mere accident? I did not dare to ask him,
for I felt that by his answer _I_ should be as much in _his_ power as he
was in mine.

"'I have often imagined there might be such a will,' said I; 'there is
no reason to suppose it is not in existence. Could it not be searched
for and found?'

"He understood me at once, and replied,--

"'Have you any of Hawke's handwriting by you?'

"'A quantity,' said I; 'and it is a remarkable hand, very distinctive,
and not hard to imitate,--at least, by any one skilled in such
accomplishments.'

"He blushed a little at the allusion, but laughed it off.

"'The girl could have died last year; she might have been buried,--where
shall we say?' added he, carelessly.

"'At Meisner, in the Tyrol,' said I, catching at the idea that just
struck me, for my maid died in that place, and I had got the regular
certificate of her death and burial from the Syndic, and I showed him
the document.

"'This is admirable,' said he; 'nothing easier than to erase this name
and insert another.'

"'I cannot hear of such a thing, Mr. Trover,' said I; 'nor can I, after
such a proposal, suffer the paper to leave my hands.' And with this I
gave it to him.

"'I cou