That evening Mrs. Frost made a particular request for music. Poor Dan, impatient to be alone with Tom and show him the torn scrap of paper that he had found that afternoon was forced to bring out his fiddle and accompany the Marquis. Tom, for first part, was more concerned with his own relations with Nancy than with the mysterious possibilities of the previous night. The poignant notes of the violin set his pulses to beating in tune with the throbbing of the music and transported him again into the realms of youthful dreams. They were quaint plaintive songs of old France that the Marquis chose to play that evening, folk tunes of the VendÉe, love songs of olden time.

From where he sat in the shadow Tom got a full view of Nancy seated on the oaken setlle near the fire. Her brows were drawn a little in deep thought, her lips for the most part compressed, though ever and anon relaxing at some gentler thought. Her hands were clasped, her head was bent a little, but her body was held straight and tense. Her eyes, dark and lustrous in the light of the flaming logs, always fixed upon the musician, not once wandering in his direction.

What was the influence, the fascination that strange old Frenchman seemed to exert? It seemed to Tom impossible that there could be a secret which she felt necessary to hide from them, her lifelong friends. But apart from what he knew had taken place the night before as he looked back over the past month, he was conscious that there had been a change in Nancy, a change that mystified him. It was the danger in this change, he told himself, that had awakened in him the knowledge of his love.

But then as he looked across at her so lovely, in the firelight, he felt again the thrill as when first he had taken her hand that afternoon. In that moment all the dreams, the vague longings of his boyhood had found their reality.

Suddenly, while he was thinking thus, the Marquis laid his violin upon his knees. "Ah, ma jeunnesse!" he exclaimed in a dramatic whisper, "et maintenant—et maintenant!"

For a moment no one spoke or stirred. They looked at him curiously as they always did when he brought his playing to an end in such fashion. Then he rose. "Bon soir, madame; bon soir, messieurs; bon soir, mademoiselle"

Tom saw his little faded blue eyes meet Nancy's with a look of swift significance. Then he bowed with a flourish that included them all.

"A thousand thanks, Monsieur le Marquis," murmured Mrs. Frost, "how much pleasure you give us!"

They all rose then, as the Marquis smiled his appreciation and withdrew.

"Give me your arm, Dan," the old lady said. "It must be past my bedtime. Come, Nancy."

"Yes, mother." The girl rose wearily, stopping a moment at the mantelpiece to snuff the candles there. Tom seized his opportunity, and was by her side. She started, as she realized him near her.

"Nance, Nance, I must have a word with you," he exclaimed in a tense whisper, "don't go!"

"Nance, come," called Mrs. Frost from the hall.

"Yes, Mother, I am coming ... I must go, Tom. Don't delay me. You know how Mother is ..."

"What difference will it make if you wait a moment? Good Lord! Nance, I have been trying all evening to get a word with you, and you have not so much as given me a glance. Don't go—please don't go! Oh, Nancy dear,—I love you so!"

He seized her hands and kissed them passionately. "Nance, Nance ... please ..." His arms were about her.

"Tom, you make it so hard ... Remember, you promised me ... No word of love until I can think, until I have time to know ... Please, Tom, let me go."

"I can't let you go. Oh sweetheart dear."

"Tom, we musn't—Dan, Mother! ..."

Unheeding her protest, he put his arms around her. An instant he felt her yield, then quickly thrusting him aside, she ran from the room, leaving him standing alone there, trembling with excitement, chagrin, happiness, alarm.

In a moment his friend returned and Tom pulled himself together. "Come on," said Dan, "I have a lot to tell you."

"Did you find anything this afternoon?" exclaimed Pembroke.

"Sh! for heaven's sake be careful. Don't talk here. Let's go upstairs."

A few minutes later they were closeted in Dan's chamber. The curtains were tightly drawn and a heavy quilt was hung over the door. Good Lord! thought Tom, could it be possible that these precautions in part at least were taken against Nancy. The world seemed to have turned upside down for him in the last twenty-four hours.

"Aren't we going to keep watch to-night?" he asked.

"Yes, but later. They are just getting to bed—or pretending to. Look here, this may throw light on the mystery. I found this paper in a secret cubby-hole in the old cabinet in the Oak Parlour. Draw a chair up to the table so that you can see."

"The cabinet," he continued, as he took the paper out of his strong-box and began to unfold it, "was brought from some old manor house in England. It has four little secret cubby-holes, opened by hidden springs, that Mother says were probably used by the Roman Catholics to hide pages of their mass-books during the days of persecution. She remembered fortunately a little about them. They were all empty but one, and in that I found this torn scrap of paper."

He handed the yellowed bit of writing to Tom, who flattened it out on the table before him.

"Why it's written in French," Pembroke exclaimed, as he bent over to examine it.

"Yes, I know it is," said Dan. "I can't make head or tail of it. Besides it seems to be only a part of a note or letter. I could hardly wait to give you a chance at it. You can make something of it, can't you?"

"I don't know—I guess I can. It's hard to read the handwriting. The thing's torn in two—haven't you the rest of it?"

"No, I tell you; that's all I could find; that's all, I am sure, that can be in the cabinet now. My theory is that the old marquis has somehow come across the other half and is still looking for this. God only knows who hid it there.

"How the deuce could the Marquis know about it. Ah! look—it's signed somebody, something de Boisdhyver—'anÇois—that's short for FranÇois, I guess. Evidently 't wasn't the Marquis himself. Wonder what it means?"

For goodness' sake, try to read it."

"Wait. Get that old French dictionary out of the bookcase downstairs, will you? I'll see if I can translate."

Dan crept softly out, leaving Tom bent over the paper. Again he smoothed it out carefully on the table, bringing the two candles nearer, and tried to puzzle out the faint fine handwriting.

"I can make out some of it," he remarked to Dan, when his friend returned with the dictionary. "Let me have that thing; there are a few words I don't know at all, but I'll write out as good a translation as I can."

While Tom was busy with the dictionary, Dan placed writing materials to his hand, and sat down to wait as patiently as he could. His curiosity was intensified by Pembroke's occasional exclamations and the absorption with which he bent over the task.

"There!" Tom exclaimed after half-an-hour's labour, "that's the best I can do with it. You see the original note was evidently torn into two or three strips and we have only got the righthand one, so we don't get a single complete sentence—, but what we have is mighty suggestive. Listen—This is what it says: Make great efforts ... gap ... glorious, I am about to leave' ... gap ... 'to offer my' ... gap ... 'that I should not return' ... gap ... 'directions' ... gap ... 'this paper which I tear' ... gap ... 'the explanation' ... something missing ... 'to discover' ... that's the end of a sentence. The next one begins, 'This treasure' ... than another gap ... 'jewels and money' ... 'secret chamber' ... 'one can enter' ... something gone here ... 'by the salon de chene'—that's the Oak Parlour, I suppose ... something missing again ... 'by a spring' ... 'hand of the lady in the picture' ... 'chimney on the north side of the' ... 'side a panel which reveals' ... 'one will find the directions' ... more missing ... 'of the treasure in a golden chest' ... That's the end of it. And, as I said before it is signed,—'anÇois de Boisdhyver.' There, you can read it. That's the best I can make of it."

Dan bent over his friend's translation. "Whoever wrote it was about to leave here to offer something to somebody, and if he did not return, apparently he is giving directions, in this paper, which he tears in to two or three parts, how to discover—a treasure?—jewels and money, I guess,—that he is about to hide or has hidden in a secret chamber, which is entered in some way from the Oak Parlour—? ... pushes a spring,—Something to do with the hand of the lady in the picture, near the chimney on the north side of the room ... then a panel which reveals ...where? ... the directions will be found, for getting the treasure, in a golden chest in the secret chamber? How's that for a version? I reckon the other half doesn't tell as much ...'anÇois de Boisdhyver!—That can't be the Marquis, for none of his names end 'anÇois; do they? Let's see, what are they?—Marie, Anne, TimÉlon, Armand ... Tom,"—and Dan faced his friend excitedly,—"that old devil is after treasure! Who the deuce is 'anÇois de Boisdhyver, and how did he come to leave money in the Oak Parlour? Hanged if I believe there's any secret chamber! By gad, man, if I didn't hurt when I pinch myself, I'd think I was asleep and dreaming. What do you make of it?"

"Pretty much what you do. Somebody sometime,—a good many years ago, concealed some valuables here in the Inn. It must be some one who is connected with our marquis, for the last names are the same. These are directions, or half the directions, for finding it. The Marquis knows enough about it to have been hunting for this paper. Who the devil is the Marquis?"

"The Lord knows. But how does Nance come in?"

"Blamed if I can see; wish I could! This accounts for the Marquis's mysterious investigations, anyway. Probably he's no right to the paper. Maybe he isn't a Boisdhyver at all. I'll be damned if I can understand how he has got Nance to league with him."

"And now what the deuce are we going to do about it?" asked Dan.

"Hunt for the treasure ourselves, eh?"

"Well, why not? but to do that we've got to get rid of the Marquis. He'll be suspicious if we begin to poke about the north wing. Hanged if I wouldn't like to have it all out with him!"

"Yes, but we'd better think and talk it over before we decide to do anything. We can watch them. We'll watch to-night any way, and plan something definite to-morrow."

"I tell you one thing, Tom, I am going to make Mother tell me all she knows about Nancy. Perhaps she is mixed up in some way with all this. But it's time to keep watch now. We'll put out the candles and I'll watch for the first two hours. If you go to sleep, I'll wake you up to take the next turn. How about it?"

"Hang sleep!" Tom replied.

"All right, but we must blow out the light. Lucky it's clear. Let's whisper after this."

Tom threw himself on the bed, while Dan sat near the window and kept his eyes fixed on the door of the bowling-alley. They talked for some time in low tones, but eventually Tom fell asleep. Dan waked him at twelve for his vigil, and he in turn was wakened at two. During the third watch they both succumbed to weariness.

Tow awoke with a start about four, and sprang to the window. The moon was sinking low in the western sky, but its light still flooded the deserted courtyard beneath. He heard the patter of a horse's hoofs on the road beyond and the crunching of the snow beneath the runners of a sleigh. Well, he thought, as he rubbed his eyes, it was too near morning for anything to happen, so he turned in and was soon asleep, as though no difficult problems were puzzling his mind and heart and no mysteries were being enacted around him.