of the lawyer
who attended your father's funeral. Then he came down to your father,
and I know he had long and earnest conversations with him. I did all I
could to listen, but the Colonel always had the windows and doors shut
before he began to speak. I could see that your father was troubled.
Then the Colonel died. After his death I could never find his snuff box;
he had carried it about with him for some years; once or twice I had
examined it, but it was too small for the diamonds to be hidden in. I
suppose that he had given it to the sahib, your father, but as I could
never find it I guessed that there was some mystery attached to it,
though what I could not tell.

"Then your father took me down to Crowswood with him, and Mrs.
Cunningham and the little girl came down. I was surprised to find that
your father seemed to be master of the estate, and that no one thought
anything of the child, whose name had been changed. I spoke one day to
Mrs. Cunningham about it; your father seemed to me a just and good man,
and I could not believe that he was robbing his brother's daughter. Mrs.
Cunningham told me that the Colonel did not wish her to be known as an
heiress, and that he had left the estate to his brother until she came
of age. Your father was as good a master as the Colonel had been.
I watched and watched, and once or twice I overheard him talking to
himself in the library, and discovered that your father himself was
altogether ignorant of the hiding place of the property that the Colonel
had mentioned in his will. I knew then that I should have to wait until
the child was either eighteen or twenty-one.

"It was a long time, but I had learnt to be patient. I was not unhappy;
I loved your father, I loved the Colonel's little daughter; and I was
very fond of you. All these things were small to me in comparison to my
vow and the finding the jewels of the god, but they shortened the years
of waiting. Then a year before the young mistress was eighteen came the
shot through the window. I did not know who had fired it, but I saw that
your father's life was in danger, and I said to myself, 'He will tell
the young sahib what he knows about the bracelet.' After you had gone
into the library I opened the door quietly, and listened. I could hear
much that was said, but not all. I heard him say something about a snuff
box, and some means of finding the lost things being hidden in it, and
that he had kept them all these years in a