had
disappeared, so her speech might return. The fruitless search was
never relinquished, and in time absorbed all of Malcolm Dudley's
interest. The crops were left to the servants, who neglected them. The
yard had been dug over many times. Every foot of ground for rods
around had been sounded with a pointed iron bar. The house had
suffered in the search. No crack or cranny had been left unexplored.
The spaces between the walls, beneath the floors, under the
hearths--every possible hiding place had been searched, with little
care for any resulting injury.

* * * * *

Into this household Ben Dudley, left alone in the world, had come when
a boy of fifteen. He had no special turn for farming, but such work as
was done upon the old plantation was conducted under his supervision.
In the decaying old house, on the neglected farm, he had grown up in
harmony with his surroundings. The example of his old uncle, wrecked
in mind by a hopeless quest, had never been brought home to him as a
warning; use had dulled its force. He had never joined in the search,
except casually, but the legend was in his mind. Unconsciously his
standards of life grew around it. Some day he would be rich, and in
order to be sure of it, he must remain with his uncle, whose heir he
was. For the money was there, without a doubt. His great-uncle had hid
the gold and left the letter--Ben had read it.

The neighbours knew the story, or at least some vague version of it,
and for a time joined in the search--surreptitiously, as occasion
offered, and each on his own account. It was the common understanding
that old Malcolm was mentally unbalanced. The neighbouring Negroes,
with generous imagination, fixed his mythical and elusive treasure at
a million dollars. Not one of them had the faintest conception of the
bulk or purchasing power of one million dollars in gold; but when one
builds a castle in the air, why not make it lofty and spacious?

From this unwholesome atmosphere Ben Dudley found relief, as he grew
older, in frequent visits to Clarendon, which invariably ended at the
Treadwells', who were, indeed, distant relatives. He had one good
horse, and in an hour or less could leave behind him the shabby old
house, falling into ruin, the demented old man, digging in the
disordered yard, the dumb old woman watching him from her inscrutable
eyes; and by a change as abrupt as that of coming from a dark room
into the brightness