e forest, even if it lead into the desert!

Something in Evelyn's suggestion had struck me as the best to pursue
under the circumstances, although at first I so boldly repudiated the
idea of Mr. Bainrothe's power. Unless I could prove that he had removed
the treasure for unworthy uses--why speak of it at all? I should only
irritate and set him on his guard by such allusions; whereas, by a
course of reticence, I still might learn, as she had suggested, the
truth when he least suspected my purpose.

It would be so easy for him to deny all knowledge of the concealed
chest--so easy to lay the robbery on Morton, even if the first were
proved--or even on Evelyn!

I had sent impulsively for Mr. Bainrothe to come to me on the evening
of my discovery, but his visit was delayed by a necessity that kept him
from home all night, so that I had time to revolve and resolve on my
course of action before I saw him, which was not until the following
afternoon, and by this time my mind had undergone a change. He came, but
not alone--his son accompanied him.

I have reason since then to think that Evelyn and Claude Bainrothe had
met before their cold and measured interview in my presence. It was to
me a painful and embarrassing one, and this time the graceful ease was
all on the other side--I was preoccupied and agitated, Claude courteous
and self-possessed, Evelyn lofty and confident, as though she had lived
or trodden down her emotions, and, to my surprise, Mr. Basil Bainrothe
wore his accustomed deliberate and self-poised demeanor, making no
reference, not even by his expression of face or a glance of his
kaleidoscopic eyes, to the sad catastrophe with which by this time I was
but too well acquainted.

I had been reading newspapers eagerly all day, when he came, and, from a
contradictory mass of evidence, had gleaned some grains of truth. One
fact was beyond contradiction--a second Samson had drawn down the ruins
of a temple, not on the heads of his foes alone, but his friends as
well, blinded, as he of old, by the treachery of that basest of all
Delilahs, a fawning public!

Yes, we were ruined; the only hope now was in the honesty of Mr. Basil
Bainrothe. Should the gold I saw him hiding away not have been
appropriated to the purchase of bank-stocks--should it have been saved
for me--we might still rejoice in wealth beyond our deserts, and equal
to our desires.

We still might keep the old, beloved roof above our heads, preserve