of such
things, but they must all have cost ten, twenty, or maybe more thousands
of dollars."

As she finished, breathless, Pat looked from one to the other of us. And
Jack and I dared not look at each other, or our eyes would have said,
"Told you so!"

"He put these things to make us rich, where we would think they were
_ours_," the girl went on. "It was noble. He would never have
confessed--never let us know what we owed to him. If you and me had not
seen him last night--and if I had not known the box--we should have
believed. We should have sold the jewels and paid our debts. And I--but
what use to think of what I could have done? What I _must_ do, is to
tell him I _know_--yes, the _minute_ he comes back to our house. It will
be to-day, for now we can guess what has kept him so busy. He has
somehow got these jewels--not set, so they may seem to be very old. But
how--_how_ did he get them--a poor man like him?"

"However he got them, it's all _right_," Jack soothed her.

"I am sure!" she said proudly. "He was to try and find money. He told me
that at Bretton Woods. He finds it. But he does not keep. He gives it to
me, like this! Of course it does no good. Of course I cannot take. I
wish I could see him _here_ at this house, with you to help me talk of
last night."

Well, so it was arranged, according to her wish: that we should send
over to his "diggings," as he calls them, and see if Peter had arrived.
The car was despatched with the chauffeur and a hasty note from me; and
Patty waited with us for news. But there was no news. Mr. Storm had not
come, and his landlady, the village dressmaker, knew nothing of his
movements.

There, my dear, I must leave my story. About this episode you now know
as much as I do, or any of us. But doesn't it make you love Peter? When
he told me his _secret_, he never breathed a word of this intention.

If only one chance in a million hadn't placed his best girl and two of
his best friends within spying distance, the poor fellow's plan would
have been a brilliant success. No doubt his idea was to propose (as if
jokingly) to Larry a search for Captain Kidd's alleged treasure, to
replenish the family fortunes after the fire. They would have been
indebted to no one for what the cave might yield. A rich Larry and Patty
could have arisen like a pair of phoenixes hand in hand from their own
ashes, and flown high above Caspian and Shuster level!

The thing is now to let Peter know his