He ran away and quickly returned, placing a rather bulky parcel in the
girl's hands.

"You read it, Uncle John," she said. "There can't be anything private in
Tato's letter, and perhaps she has explained everything."

He put on his glasses and then took the missive and deliberately opened
it. Tato wrote a fine, delicate hand, and although the English words
were badly spelled she expressed herself quite well in the foreign
tongue. With the spelling and lack of punctuation corrected, her letter
was as follows:

"Dear, innocent, foolish Patsy: How astonished you will be to find I
have vanished from your life forever; and what angry and indignant words
you will hurl after poor Tato! But they will not reach me, because you
will not know in which direction to send them, and I will not care
whether you are angry or not.

"You have been good to me, Patsy, and I really love you--fully as much
as I have fear of that shrewd and pretty cousin of yours, whose cold
eyes have made me tremble more than once. But tell Beth I forgive her,
because she is the only clever one of the lot of you. Louise thinks she
is clever, but her actions remind me of the juggler who explained his
tricks before he did them, so that the audience would know how skillful
he was."

"But oh, Patsy, what simpletons you all are! And because you have been
too stupid to guess the truth I must bother to write it all down. For it
would spoil much of my satisfaction and enjoyment if you did not know
how completely I have fooled you.

"You tricked us that day in the mountain glen, and for the first time an
Alcanta brigand lost his prisoners and his ransom money through being
outwitted. But did you think that was the end? If so you failed to
appreciate us.

"Look you, my dear, we could have done without the money, for our family
has been robbing and accumulating for ages, with little need to expend
much from year to year. It is all in the Bank of Italy, too, and drawing
the interest, for my father is a wise man of business. That four hundred
thousand lira was to have been our last ransom, and after we had fairly
earned it you tricked us and did not pay.

"So my father and I determined to get even with you, as much through
revenge as cupidity. We were obliged to desert the valley at once,
because we were getting so rich that the government officials became
uneasy and warned us to go or be arrested. So we consulted together and
decided upon our little plot, w