e. He became a merchant and
prospered. When he married my mother he was a man of considerable
property. It was only when both my father and mother were dead that I
came to know the story which I have told you. In one breath I learned
this and that during the last years of his life my father's means had
been dissipated through expensive, even luxurious, living, and a series
of unwise speculations. But one heritage did come down to me . . . the
memorandum book of my grandfather, Paul Bellaire! And it is because of
that that I am here!"

"Lemarc and Sefton?" prompted Drennen.

"Marc learned the story with me. We looked over the papers together.
There was a rude cryptic sort of map; I have it. It meant nothing
without a key. We searched everywhere for that key. Marc pretending
to aid me, had it all of the time in his hand. When he had had time to
carry it away and place it where I could not find it he came back and
told me that he had it. Without it the map is useless. So I
compromised with Marc, since there was no other way, and he came with
me. And Captain Sefton?" She frowned and her voice was hard as she
concluded: "Marc has, I think, all of the vices of our blood without
its virtues. Through gambling debts and other obligations he was in a
bad way. Captain Sexton has him pretty well at his mercy. So, just as
I let Marc in, Marc was forced to allow Sefton to become the third
member of our party."

A wild enough tale, certainly, and yet Drennen doubted no word of it.
Wilder things have been true. And, perhaps, no words issuing from that
red mouth of Ygerne's would have failed to ring true in her lover's
ears.

"You said that I could help?"

"Yes." Again there was that glint of eagerness in her eyes; no doubt
the old Bellaire fortune of minted gold and jewels in their rich
settings shone in dazzling fashion before her stimulated fancy. "We
have found the spot; it is in a canon not twenty miles from here. But,
at some time during the last ten winters, there have been heavy
landslides. The whole side of a mountain has slipped down, covering
the place where, on the map, there is the little cross which spells
treasure. It will take money, much money, for the excavation. And
Marc and Captain Sefton and I have no money. We may dig for months,
but at last . . ."

"I'll finance it," said Drennen steadily. "If you will allow me,
Ygerne? I'd do so much more than just that for you! I am afraid it