a most alarming
possibility."

"Did Gifford say, in so many words, that you were known to have money in
the house?"

"He did not. He said it was suspected."

"And what is the alarming possibility you just spoke of?" continued
Marcy.

"Why, I am afraid that there is some trusted person nearer to me than
the overseer is--some one right here in the house who has been watching
me day and night," answered his mother, shivering all over and drawing
nearer to her sturdy son, as if for protection. "You don't know how it
makes me feel, or how keenly I have suffered since young Gifford's
visit."

"I wish he had stopped away," said Marcy, almost fiercely.

"I don't," replied his mother. "He meant it for the best, and wouldn't
have told me a word if I had not insisted. You must not blame Walter. It
is best that I should understand the situation; and Marcy, you know you
would not have told me a word of all this if Gifford had told it to
you."

"Perhaps he did say something to me about it," answered the boy, with an
air which said that his mother had not been telling him anything he did
not know before. "But I have been more careful of your feelings than
Gifford was."

"And did you mean to leave me all in the dark and utterly ignorant of
the perils that surround us?" said Mrs. Gray reproachfully. "Do you
think that would have been just to me? Don't imagine, because you are my
protector and the only one I have to depend on while Jack is at sea,
that you have all the courage there is between us. I know you would
shield me entirely if you could, but it is impossible; and you must let
me bear my part. I shall have to whether you consent or not. But you
haven't yet told me where you have been, how you captured that vessel,
what the captain said about it, or--or anything," she added, with a
feeble attempt to bring the boy's usual smile back to his face.
"Remember, I am deeply interested in all that you do."

"Well, you wouldn't be if you had seen the cowardly work I helped
Beardsley carry out," replied Marcy. "In the first place, Crooked Inlet
is buoyed in such a way that the stranger who tries to go through it
will run his vessel so hard and fast aground that she will be likely to
stay there until the waves make an end of her, or the shifting sands of
the bar bury her out of sight."

"That's murderous," exclaimed Mrs. Gray, with a shudder. "Is Captain
Beardsley about to turn wrecker?"

"He means to wreck any war vessel tha