vercome in a measure her agitation.

"On the condition I said, I will," replied Leopold. "But after you have
told me, if I find that anybody is to be wronged by my keeping still, I
shall tell all I know."

"I'm satisfied. I hope you don't think I came down here, all the way
from New York, to cheat or wrong anybody."

"I hope not. If you did, I can't do anything for you."

"You shall judge for yourself. It is just as Harvey Barth said: you are
a good young man, and you will be as honest by me as you mean to be by
other folks."

"Of course I will be."

"Your share of the money will be five hundred dollars. Shall you be
satisfied with this?"

"I think I shall be," laughed Leopold, to whom the amount seemed like a
fortune.

"You agree to take this as your share?"

"Yes; I agree to it."

"And to keep the secret?"

"On the conditions I named."

"I am satisfied with the conditions. If you and I don't get this money,
somebody else will, who has no more right to it than we have."

"But who owns the money?" asked Leopold, whose views of an honest policy
required him to settle this question first.

"Nobody."

"Nobody!" exclaimed the young man. "It must belong to somebody."

"No it don't."

"How can that be?"

"The owner is dead and gone."

"Then it belongs to his heirs."

"He has no heirs."

"Who is he, anyhow?"

"He isn't anybody now. Didn't I say he was dead and gone?" demanded Miss
Liverage, impatiently.

"Well, who was he, then?"

"I don't know."

"It's very strange," mused Leopold.

"I know it's strange. I am the only person living who knows anything
about this money. If I don't take it, somebody else will, or it will
stay in the ground till the end of the world," said the woman. "It's a
plain case; and I think the money belongs to me as much as it does to
anybody else."

"Where is it buried?"

Before she would answer this question, Miss Liverage satisfied herself
that Leopold understood the bargain they had made, and was ready to
abide by all its conditions. With the proviso he had before insisted
upon, the young man agreed to the arrangement.

"I don't know exactly where the money was buried," continued the owner
of the great secret.

"O, you don't!" exclaimed Leopold, rising from his chair, and bursting
into a laugh. "Then this is a 'wild goose chase.'"

"No, it isn't. But now you have agreed to the terms, I will tell you all
about it. Sit down; for I don't want to scream out wh