etters on the emeralds?"

Singh looked up at him sharply. "What made you ask that?" he said.

"I asked you," said Glyn, "because I see you took the belt with you this
afternoon."

"How did you know that?" snapped out the boy.

"Why, a baby would have known it. It was plain enough when you were in
such a hurry to scramble it out of sight, and were so clumsy that you
showed me what it was."

"Oh!" ejaculated the boy sharply; and he stood biting his lip. "I--I--"

"There, don't stammer about it," said Glyn.

"But I felt that you would find fault with me and object."

"That's quite right," said Glyn, frowning. "I should have done so, for
you promised me not to begin showing that thing about to anybody. Why
will you be so weak and proud of what, after all, is only a toy?"

"It isn't a toy," cried the boy indignantly. "It is something very
great and noble to possess such a--such a--"

"Showy thing," said Glyn grimly.

"You can't see it correctly," said Singh; "and I only took it that Mr
Barclay, who is a great student, might read--decipher, he called it--the
words engraved on the stones; and he was very grateful because I let him
read them, and thanked me very much."

"But you might have remembered what I said to you about it."

"I did remember, Glynny," cried the boy warmly. "I thought of you all
the time, and I even offended him at last by not doing what he wished."

"What did he wish? To get you to lend him more money?"

"No," cried Singh. "He wanted me to leave the belt with him, so that he
might sit up all night and copy the inscription."

"He did?"

"Yes; and I wouldn't, because I thought you wouldn't like it, and that
it wouldn't be right. But you don't know how hard it was to do. Mr
Morris said, though, that I was quite right, and he told me so twice
after we came away."

"But why was it hard?" asked Glyn.

"Because Mr Barclay said it would be nothing to me, and it meant so
much to him. But it worried me very much, because it seemed as if I,
who am so rich, would not help one who was so poor."

"I don't care," cried Glyn angrily. "You did quite right, and this Mr
Barclay can't be a gentleman. If he were, he would not have pressed you
so hard. It isn't as if it were a book. If that were lost, you could
buy another one."

"But he said that he'd take the greatest care of it, and never let it go
out of his hands till he had brought it back and delivered it to me."

"I don't care,