Robert Morton's eyes fell before his piercing scrutiny.

"Yes," was his reluctant answer.

"You knew it all along?"

"Yes."

"An' Snellin'?"

"He is in Mr. Galbraith's employ, yes."

"An'--an'--you let 'em come here--" began the old man bewildered.

"You let 'em come here to steal Willie's idee," interrupted Janoah,
wheeling on Bob. "You helped 'em to come, after his takin' you into
his home an' all!"

"I didn't know what they meant to do," Robert Morton stammered. "I
just thought they were going to lend us a hand at working up the thing."

"A likely story!" sniffed Janoah with scorn. "No siree! You came here
as a tool--you were paid for it, I'll bet a hat!"

"You lie."

"Prove it," was the taunting response.

"I--I--can't prove it," confessed the young man wretchedly, "but Willie
knows that what you accuse me of isn't so."

With face alight with hope he turned toward the old man at his elbow;
but no denial came from the expected source. Willie had sunk down on a
pile of boards and buried his face in his hands.

"An' I thought they were my friends," they heard him moan.

Robert Morton hesitated, then bent over the bowed figure, and as he did
so Janoah, casting one last look of gloating delight at the ruin he had
wrought, slipped softly from the room.

As he went out he heard a broken murmur from the inventor:

"I'll--I'll--not--believe it," asserted he feebly.

But despite the brave words, the seed of suspicion had taken root, and
Robert Morton knew that Willie's confidence in him had been shaken.
Still the little old man clung with dogged persistence to his sanguine
declaration:

"_I'll not believe it_!"

CHAPTER XVII

A GRIM HAND INTERVENES

The next morning saw a grave change in the household on the bluff.
Delight, with violet-circled eyes and cheeks whose rose tints had faded
to pallor, listened with dread for the sound of the Galbraith's motor.
What the day would bring forth she feared to speculate. Willie and Bob
also showed traces of a sleepless night. Although they had guarded
from the others the happenings of the previous evening, between them
loomed a barrier of mutual amazement and reproach. Beneath his
attempted optimism Willie was wounded and indignant that he should have
been deceived by those in whose kindness he had believed so
whole-heartedly. He fought the facts with loyalty, obstinately
trusting that some satisfactory explanation would be forthcoming, bu