When Croyden had got Parmenter’s letter from the secret drawer in the escritoire, he rang the old-fashioned pull-bell for Moses. It was only a little after nine, and, though he did not require the negro to remain in attendance until he retired, he fancied the kitchen fire still held him.

And he was not mistaken. In a moment Moses appeared—his eyes heavy with the sleep from which he had been aroused.

“Survent, marster!” he said, bowing from the doorway.

“Moses, did you ever shoot a pistol?” Croyden asked.

“Fur de Lawd, seh! Hit’s bin so long sence I dun hit, I t’ink I’se gun-shy, seh.”

“But you have done it?”

“Yass, seh, I has don hit.”

“And you could do it again, if necessary?”

“I speck so, seh—leas’wise, I kin try—dough I’se mons’us unsuttin, seh, mons’us unsuttin!”

“Uncertain of what—your shooting or your hitting?”

“My hittin’, seh.”

“Well, we’re all of us somewhat uncertain in that line. At least you know enough not to point the revolver toward yourself.” 204

“Hi!—I sut’n’y does! seh, I sut’n’y does!” said the negro, with a broad grin.

“There is a revolver, yonder, on the table,” said Croyden, indicating one of those they used on Greenberry Point. “It’s a self-cocker—you simply pull the trigger and the action does the rest. You understand?”

“Yass, seh, I onderstands,” said Moses.

“Bring it here,” Croyden ordered.

Moses’ fingers closed around the butt, a bit timorously, and he carried it to his master.

“I’ll show you the action,” said Croyden. “Here, is the ejector,” throwing the chamber out, “it holds six shots, you see: but you never put a cartridge under the firing-pin, because, if anything strikes the trigger, it’s likely to be discharged.”

“Yass, seh!”

Croyden loaded it, closed the cylinder, and passed it over to Moses, who took it with a little more assurance. He was harkening back thirty years, and more.

“What do yo warn me to do, seh?” he asked.

“I want you to sit down, here, while I’m away, and if any one tries to get in this house, to-night, you’re to shoot him. I’m going over to Captain Carrington’s—I’ll be back by eleven o’clock. It isn’t likely you will be disturbed; if you are, one shot will frighten him off, even if you don’t hit him, and I’ll hear the shot, and come back at once. You understand?” 205

“Yass, seh!—I’m to shoot anyone what tries to get in.”

“Not exactly!” laughed Croyden. “You’re to shoot anyone who tries to break in. For Heaven’s sake! don’t shoot me, when I return, or any one else who comes legitimately. Be sure he is an intruder, then bang away.”

“Sut’n’y, seh! I onderstands. I’se dub’us bout hittin’, but I kin bang away right nuf. Does yo’ spose any one will try to git in, seh?”

“No, I don’t!” Croyden smiled—“but you be ready for them, Moses, be ready for them. It’s just as well to provide against contingencies.”

“Yass, seh!” as Croyden went out and the front door closed behind him, “but dem ’tingencies is monty dang’ous t’ings to fools wid. I don’ likes hit, dat’s whar I don’.”

Croyden found Miss Carrington just where he had left her—a quick return to the sofa having been synchronous with his appearance in the hall.

“I had a mind not to wait here,” she said; “you were an inordinately long time, Mr. Croyden.”

“I was!” he replied, sitting down beside her. “I was, and I admit it—but it can be explained.”

“I’m listening!” she smiled.

“Before you listen to me, listen to Robert Parmenter, deceased!” said he, and gave her the letter.

“Oh, this is the letter—do you mean that I am to read it?” 206

“If you please!” he answered.

She read it through without a single word of comment—an amazing thing in a woman, who, when her curiosity is aroused, can ask more questions to the minute than can be answered in a month. When she had finished, she turned back and read portions of it again, especially the direction as to finding the treasure, and the postscript bequests by the Duvals.

At last, she dropped the letter in her lap and looked up at Croyden.

“A most remarkable document!” she said. “Most extraordinary in its ordinariness, and most ordinary in its extraordinariness. And you searched, carefully, for three weeks and found—nothing?”

“We did,” he replied. “Now, I’ll tell you about it.”

“First, tell me where you obtained this letter?”

“I found it by accident—in a secret compartment of an escritoire at Clarendon,” he answered.

She nodded.

“Now you may tell me about it?” she said, and settled back to listen.

“This is the tale of Parmenter’s treasure—and how we did not find it!” he laughed.

Then he proceeded to narrate, briefly, the details—from the finding of the letter to the present moment, dwelling particularly on the episode of the theft of their wallets, the first and second coming 207 of the thieves to the Point, their capture and subsequent release, together with the occurrence of this evening, when he was approached, by the well-dressed stranger, at Clarendon’s gates.

And, once again, marvelous to relate, Miss Carrington did not interrupt, through the entire course of the narrative. Nor did she break the silence for a time after he had concluded, staring thoughtfully, the while, down into the grate, where a smouldering back log glowed fitfully.

“What do you intend to do, as to the treasure?” she asked, slowly.

“Give it up!” he replied. “What else is there to do?”

“And what about this stranger?”

“He must give it up!” laughed Croyden. “He has no recourse. In the words of the game, popular hereabout, he is playing a bobtail!”

“But he doesn’t know it’s a bobtail. He is convinced you found the treasure,” she objected.

“Let him make whatever trouble he can, it won’t bother me, in the least.”

“He is not acting alone,” she persisted. “He has confederates—they may attack Clarendon, in an effort to capture the treasure.”

“My dear child! this is the twentieth century, not the seventeenth!” he laughed. “We don’t ‘stand-by to repel boarders,’ these days.”

“Pirate’s gold breeds pirate’s ways!” she answered. 208

He stared at her, in surprise.

“Rather queer!—I’ve heard those same words before, in this connection.”

“Community of minds.”

“Is it a quotation?” he asked.

“Possibly—though I don’t recall it. Suppose you are attacked and tortured till you reveal where you’ve hidden the jewels?” she insisted.

“I cannot suppose them so unreasonable!” he laughed, again. “However, I put Moses on guard—with a big revolver and orders to fire at anyone molesting the house. If we hear a fusillade we’ll know it’s he shooting up the neighborhood.”

“Then the same idea did suggest itself to you!”

“Only to the extent of searching for the jewels—I regarded that as vaguely possible, but there isn’t the slightest danger of any one being tortured.”

“You know best, I suppose,” she said—“but you’ve had your warning—and pirate’s gold breeds pirate’s ways. You’ve given up all hope of finding the treasure—abandoned jewels worth—how many dollars?”

“Possibly half a million,” he filled in.

“Without a further search? Oh! Mr. Croyden!”

“If you can suggest what to do—anything which hasn’t been done, I shall be only too glad to consider it.”

“You say you dug up the entire Point for a hundred yards inland?” 209

“We did.”

“And dredged the Bay for a hundred yards?”

“Yes.”

She puckered her brows in thought. He regarded her with an amused smile.

“I don’t see what you’re to do, except to do it all over again,” she announced—“Now, don’t laugh! It may sound foolish, but many a thing has been found on a second seeking—and this, surely, is worth a second, or a third, or even many seekings.”

“If there were any assurance of ultimate success, it would pay to spend a lifetime hunting. The two essentials, however, are wanting: the extreme tip of Greenberry Point in 1720, and the beech-trees. We made the best guess at their location. More than that, the zone of exploration embraced every possible extreme of territory—yet, we failed. It will make nothing for success to try again.”

“But it is somewhere!” she reflected.

“Somewhere, in the Bay!—It’s shoal water, for three or four hundred feet around the Point, with a rock bottom. The Point itself has been eaten into by the Bay, down to this rock. Parmenter’s chest disappeared with the land in which it was buried, and no man will find it now, except by accident.”

“It seems such a shame!” she exclaimed. “A fortune gone to waste!” 210

“Without anyone having the fun of wasting it!” laughed Croyden.

She took up Parmenter’s letter again, and glanced over it. Then she handed it back, and shook her head.

“It’s too much for my poor brain,” she said. “I surrender.”

“Precisely where we landed. We gave it rather more than a fair trial, and, then, we gave it up. I’m done. When I go home, to-night, I shall return the letter to the escritoire where I found it, and forget it. There is no profit in speculating further.”

“You can return it to its hiding place,” she reflected, “but you can’t cease wondering. Why didn’t Marmaduke Duval get the treasure while the landmarks were there? Why did he leave it for his heirs?”

“Probably on account of old Parmenter’s restriction that it be left until the ‘extremity of need.’”

She nodded, in acquiescence.

“Probably,” she said, “the Duvals would regard it as a matter of honor to observe the exact terms of the bequest. Alas! Alas! that they did so!”

“It’s only because they did so, that I got a chance to search!” Croyden laughed.

“You mean that, otherwise, there would be no buried treasure!” she exclaimed. “Of course!—how stupid! And with all that money, the Duvals 211 might have gone away from Hampton—might have experienced other conditions. Colonel Duval might never have met your father—you might have never come to Clarendon.—My goodness! Where does it end?”

“In the realm of pure conjecture,” he answered. “It is idle to theorize on the might-have-beens, or what might-have-happened if the what-did-happen hadn’t happened. Dismiss it, at least, for this evening. You asked what I was doing for three weeks at Annapolis, and I have consumed a great while in answering—let us talk of something else. What have you been doing in those three weeks?”

“Nothing! A little Bridge, a few riding parties, some sails on the Bay, with an occasional homily by Miss Erskine, when she had me cornered, and I couldn’t get away. Then is when I learned what a deep impression you had made!” she laughed.

“We both were learning, it seems,” he replied.

She looked at him, inquiringly.

“I don’t quite understand,” she said.

“You made an impression, also—of course, that’s to be expected, but this impression is much more than the ordinary kind!”

“Merci, Monsieur,” she scoffed.

“No, it isn’t merci, it’s a fact. And he is a mighty good fellow on whom to make an impression.”

“You mean, Mr.—Macloud?”

“Just so! I mean Macloud.” 212

“You’re very safe in saying it!”

“Wherefore?”

“He is absent. It’s not susceptible of proof.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I think so!”

“I don’t!”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“For he’s coming back——”

“To Hampton?”

“To Hampton.”

“When?” she said, sceptically.

“Very soon!”

“Delightfully indefinite!” she laughed.

“In fact, within a week.”

She laughed, again!

“To be accurate, I expect him not later than the day-after-to-morrow.”

“I shall believe you, when I see him!” incredulously.

“He is, I think, coming solely on your account.”

“But you’re not quite sure?—oh! modest man!”

“Naturally, he hasn’t confided in me.”

“So you’re confiding in me—how clever!”

“I could tell some things——”

“Which are fables.”

“——but I won’t—they might turn your head——”

“Which way—to the right or left?”

“——and make you too confident and too cruel. He saw you but twice——” 213

“Once!” she corrected.

“Once, on the street; again, when we called in the evening—but he gave you a name, the instant he saw you——”

“How kind of him!”

“He called you: ‘The Symphony in Blue.’”

“Was I in blue?” she asked.

“You were—and looking particularly fit.”

“Was that the first time you had noticed it?” she questioned blandly.

“Do you think so?” he returned.

“I am asking you, sir.”

“Do I impress you as being blind?”

“No, you most assuredly do not!” she laughed.

He looked at her with daring eyes.

“Yes!” she said, “I know you’re intrepid—but you won’t!”

“Why?—why won’t I?”

“Because, it would be false to your friend. You have given me to him.”

“I have given you to him!” he exclaimed, with denying intonation.

“Yes!—as between you two, you have renounced, in his favor.”

“I protest!”

“At least, I so view it,” with a teasingly fascinating smile.

“I protest!” he repeated.

“I heard you.”

“I protest!” he reiterated. 214

“Don’t you think that you protest over-much?” she inquired sweetly.

“If we were two children, I’d say: ‘You think you’re smart, don’t you?’”

“And I’d retort: ‘You got left, didn’t you?’”

Then they both laughed.

“Seriously, however—do you really expect Mr. Macloud?” she asked.

“I surely do—probably within two days; and I’m not chaffing when I say that you’re the inducement. So, be good to him—he’s got more than enough for two, I can assure you.”

“Mercenary!” she laughed.

“No—just careful!” he answered.

“And what number am I—the twenty-first, or thereabout?”

“What matters it, if you’re the one, at present?”

She raised her shoulders in the slightest shrug.

“I’d sooner be the present one than all the has-beens,” he insisted.

“Opinions differ,” she remarked.

“If it will advantage any——”

“I didn’t say so,” she interrupted.

“——I can tell you——”

“Many fables, I don’t doubt!” she cut in, again.

“——that we have been rather intimate, for a few years, and I have never before known him to exhibit particular interest in any woman.” 215

“‘Why don’t you speak for yourself, John,’” she quoted, merrily.

“Because, to be frank, I haven’t enough for two,” he answered, gayly.

But beneath the gayety, she thought she detected the faintest note of regret. So! there was some one!

And, woman-like, when he had gone, she wondered about her—whether she was dark or fair, tall or small, vivacious or reserved, flirtatious or sedate, rich or poor—and whether they loved each other—or whether it was he, alone, who loved—or whether he had not permitted himself to be carried so far—or whether—then, she dropped asleep.

Croyden went back to Clarendon, keeping a sharp look-out for anyone under the trees around the house. He found Moses in the library, evidently just aroused from slumber by the master’s door key.

“No one’s bin heah, seh, ’cep de boy wid dis ’spatch,” he hastened to say.

Croyden tore open the envelope:—It was a wire from Macloud, that he would be down to-morrow.

“You may go to bed, Moses.”

“Yass, seh! yass, seh!—I’se pow’ful glad yo’s back, seh. Nothin’ I kin git yo befo I goes?”

“Nothing!” said Croyden. “You’re a good soldier, Moses, you didn’t sleep on guard.”

“No, seh! I keps wide awake, Marster Croyden, wide awake all de time, seh. Survent, seh!” and, with a bow, he disappeared. 216

Croyden finished his cigar, put out the light, and went slowly upstairs—giving not a thought to the Parmenter treasure nor the man he had met outside. His mind was busy with Elaine Cavendish—their last night on the moonlit piazza—the brief farewell—the lingering pressure of her fingers—the light in her eyes—the subdued pleasure, when they met unexpectedly in Annapolis—her little ways to detain him, keep him close to her—her instant defense of him at Mattison’s scurrilous insinuation—the officers’ hop—the rhythmic throb of the melody—the scented, fluttering body held close in his arms—the lowered head—the veiled eyes—the trembling lashes—his senses steeped in the fragrance of her beauty—the temptation well-nigh irresistible—his resolution almost gone—trembling—trembling——

The vision passed—music ceased—the dance was ended. Sentiment vanished—reason reigned once more.

He was a fool! a fool! to think of her, to dream of the past, even. But it is pleasant, sometimes, to be a fool—where a beautiful woman is concerned, and only one’s self to pay the piper.