campa's hand?

Doubt assailed her mind--many doubts, indeed. Although Mr. Broxton Day
seemed still in safety, the mystery surrounding his situation in Mexico
grew mightily in Janice's mind.

That evening Hopewell Drugg returned from Boston and reported that
Lottie would have to remain under the doctors' care for a time. They,
too, were in doubt. Nobody could yet say whether the child would lose
her sight or not.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TIDE TURNS

These doubts, however, did not switch Janice Day's thought off the line
of the stolen gold coins.

The five dollar gold piece found in the possession of Jim Narnay still
raised in the girl's mind a number of queries. It was a mystery, she
believed, that when solved might aid in clearing Nelson Haley of
suspicion.

Of course, the coin she carried in her purse might not be one of those
lost with the collection. That was impossible to decide at the moment.
The case of the ten-dollar coin was different. That was an exceedingly
rare one and in all probability nobody but a person ignorant of its
value would have put it into circulation.

Nevertheless, how did Jim Narnay get hold of a five dollar gold piece?

Elder Concannon had not given it to him. Narnay had come to town on
that Saturday evening with only a dollar of the elder's money in his
pocket. Did he bring the coin with him, or did he obtain it after
reaching town? And who had given the gold piece to the man, in either
case?

Janice would have been glad to take somebody into her confidence in
this matter; but who should it be? Not her uncle or her aunt. Neither
Hopewell nor 'Rill was to be thought of. And the minister, or Elder
Concannon, seemed too much apart from this business to be conferred
with. And Nelson----

She did go to Mrs. Beaseley's one evening, hoping that she might find
Nelson there, for she had not seen the young man or heard from him
since he had gone out of town to work for Elder Concannon. He was not
at the widow's, and she found that good but lachrymose woman in tears.

"I'm a poor lone woman--loner and lorner than I've felt since my poor,
sainted Charles passed away. Oh, Janice! it seems a pitiful shame that
such a one as Mr. Haley should have to go to work on a farm when he can
do such a lot of other things--and better things."

"I don't know about there being anything much better than farming--if
one has a taste for it," said Janice cheerfully.

"But an educated man--a