can't protest too much, as it only excites old David. She says the
old man is much weaker.

You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies,
as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the
money.

The second fact I learned was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle
about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search
for the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say
so to her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart
came on here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them
yourself.

So that makes two lies for our gentle friend--and serious lies, both of
them. To my mind, they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.
_Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the way_.
He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in confinement, or
he has killed him.

I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless.
Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these
confounded people of mine.

One word more. Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this point, merely puzzled
over things. She doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure.
So we shall have to tread softly where she is concerned.

I shall see you to-night. R.H.

Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought
how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he
had learned into this clear, concise form. Another man would have
scribbled, "Important facts--tell you all about it to-night," or
something of that kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour
over his writing.

Ste. Marie walked up and down the room with all his strength forcing his
brain to quiet, reasonable action. Once he said, aloud:

"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all
along." He realized that he had been for some days slowly arriving at
that conclusion, and that since the night before he had been practically
certain of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions
into logical order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely
home to him, but he would have reached the same truth without it--though
that matter of the will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a
strong weapon to strike with.

He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing
across the street into the green shrubbery of the