The incident, so strange as to make more than one lawyer believe for a time that really such a quality as honesty was to be found in the world, was as follows:—­Sarah Bond, be it remembered, had never seen the disputed will; she was very anxious to do so; and yet, afterwards, she did not like to visit Doctors Commons with any one.  She feared, she knew not what; and yet, above all things, did she desire to see this will with her own eyes.

Mr. Cramp was sitting in his office when a woman, muffled in a cloak, and veiled, entered and seated herself without speaking.  After a moment she unclasped her cloak, loosened the wrapping from her throat, threw back her veil, and asked for a glass of water.

“Bless me, Miss Bond, is it you?  I am sure I am much honoured—­very much!”

“No honour, sir,” she replied, “but necessity.  I have been to Doctors Commons; have seen the will—­it is my father’s writing!”

“You confess this to me?” said Mr. Cramp, drawing back on his chair, and almost gasping for breath.

“I do,” she answered; “I proclaim it; it is my father’s copy of the original will.  But how the copy could have been substituted for the real will, I can only conjecture.”

“Surmise is something,” replied the lawyer, a little relieved; “conjecture sometimes leads to proof.”

“My father and uncle lived together when the will came into their possession.  They were in partnership as farmers.  My father’s habits were precise:  he always copied every writing, and endorsed his copies with a large C; the very C is marked upon the will I have just seen at Doctors Commons.”

“That is singular,” remarked Cramp; “but it does not show us the way out of the difficulty; on the contrary, that increases. Somebody—­I don’t for an instant suppose Mr. Jacob Bond—­in proving the will must have sworn that, to the best of their knowledge and belief, those were the real, which are only copies of the signatures.”

“True—­and such a mistake was extremely characteristic of my uncle, who performed many strange acts before he was known to be insane.  This was doubtless one of them.”

“But where is the original?” inquired the man of business.

“Heaven knows!  I cannot find it; but I am not the less assured of its existence.”

“Then we must persist in our plea of the truth of the document in Doctors Commons.”

“Certainly not,” said Sarah; “you must not persist in a falsehood in my name.  If you do, I shall rise up in court, and contradict you!  I feel it my duty, having seen the will, to state my firm belief that it is a copy of the original will, and nothing more.”

Poor Mr. Cramp was dreadfully annoyed.  He could, he thought, manage all sorts of clients.  He reasoned, he proved, he entreated, he got her counsel to call upon her, but all was in vain.  She would go into court, she said, herself, if her counsel deserted her.  She would not give up the cause; she would plead for the sake of her father’s honour.  She was well assured that the real will was still in existence, and would be discovered—­found—­sooner or later—­though not, perhaps, till she was in her grave.