answered in a month. When she had finished,
she turned back and read portions of it again, especially the direction
as to finding the treasure, and the postscript bequests by the Duvals.

At last, she dropped the letter in her lap and looked up at Croyden.

"A most remarkable document!" she said. "Most extraordinary in its
ordinariness, and most ordinary in its extraordinariness. And you
searched, carefully, for three weeks and found--nothing?"

"We did," he replied. "Now, I'll tell you about it."

"First, tell me where you obtained this letter?"

"I found it by accident--in a secret compartment of an escritoire at
Clarendon," he answered.

She nodded.

"Now you may tell me about it?" she said, and settled back to listen.

"This is the tale of Parmenter's treasure--and how we did _not_ find
it!" he laughed.

Then he proceeded to narrate, briefly, the details--from the finding of
the letter to the present moment, dwelling particularly on the episode
of the theft of their wallets, the first and second coming of the
thieves to the Point, their capture and subsequent release, together
with the occurrence of this evening, when he was approached, by the
well-dressed stranger, at Clarendon's gates.

And, once again, marvelous to relate, Miss Carrington did not
interrupt, through the entire course of the narrative. Nor did she
break the silence for a time after he had concluded, staring
thoughtfully, the while, down into the grate, where a smouldering back
log glowed fitfully.

"What do you intend to do, as to the treasure?" she asked, slowly.

"Give it up!" he replied. "What else is there to do?"

"And what about this stranger?"

"He _must_ give it up!" laughed Croyden. "He has no recourse. In the
words of the game, popular hereabout, he is playing a bobtail!"

"But he doesn't know it's a bobtail. He is convinced you found the
treasure," she objected.

"Let him make whatever trouble he can, it won't bother me, in the
least."

"He is not acting alone," she persisted. "He has confederates--they may
attack Clarendon, in an effort to capture the treasure."

"My dear child! this is the twentieth century, not the seventeenth!" he
laughed. "We don't 'stand-by to repel boarders,' these days."

"Pirate's gold breeds pirate's ways!" she answered.

He stared at her, in surprise.

"Rather queer!--I've heard those same words before, in this
connection."

"Community of minds."

"Is it a quotation?" he asked.