that there shouldn't be any investigation when the oldest
girl comes of age? Suppose she should never put in a claim for her
property?"

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Thurston.

"Something like this," said Mr. Scovill. "If she were to be kept shut up
somewhere for a year or so until you have had time to make your fortune,
it would be too late to hurt you with a disclosure after that. Where
nobody asks questions there is no need of answering."

Thurston saw the point, but he didn't see how it was going to be done.
It was Scovill who thought out the whole scheme. He had a large piece of
land far outside the city limits on the lake front. There was an
unoccupied house on the property. Here the girl could be kept locked up
on the pretext that she was insane, with a certain woman he knew as
keeper, a deaf-mute. He shared a secret with her and could use this
knowledge to force her to serve him. The whole thing was very simple.

"But how are we going to keep the one locked up away from the other?"
asked Mr. Thurston. "Her sister would have the whole country searching
for her."

"Then take them both," said Mr. Scovill promptly. "That'll make matters
simpler yet. You say they have no relatives and are now away in school?
Nothing could be easier. We'll build a room they can't get out of once
they're in, and when it's finished you invite them to your house for a
visit. They'll think they're coming to see you, but it's out there to
that house they'll go and they'll not come back in a hurry. In the
meantime you get hold of those stocks and bonds, sell them and put the
money in this venture and come out a rich man. When you're ready to
clear out of the country you can let the girls out, and they won't be
any worse off than when they went in--except that they won't have a
cent."

Bit by bit the plan was perfected. Mr. Thurston took a sudden interest
in his orphan wards to the extent of writing to the school where they
were attending and asking when it closed for the summer. When he was
informed that school closed the last week in May, he invited the two
girls, Genevieve and Antoinette Rogers, to spend the first weeks of
their vacation at his home. He had not seen either of them since they
were little children. They graciously accepted the invitation.

But on the day they were to arrive, Mr. Thurston found that some private
business of his very urgently required his presence in another city, and
left Mr. Scovill to see to the l