to wake them day or night if I came across
them unexpectedly."

"How pathetic!" I exclaimed. "Do you suppose they have appealed in the
same way to every one who has come in here?"

"No, or some whisper of this lost money would have become current in
the neighborhood. And it never has. The traditions associated with the
house," here her manner changed a little, "are of quite another nature.
I suppose the old gentleman has walked--looking, possibly, for his lost
bonds."

"That would be only natural," I smiled, for her mood was far from
serious. "But," I quietly pursued, "how much of this old woman's story
do you believe? Can not she have been deceived as to what she saw?
You say she is more or less demented. Perhaps there never was any old
wallet, and possibly never any money."

"I have seen the wallet. They brought it in to show me. Not that that
proves anything; but somehow I do believe in the money, and, what is
more, that it is still in this house. You will think me as demented as
they."

"No, no," I smiled, "for I am inclined to think the same; it lends such
an interest to the place. I wouldn't disbelieve it now for anything."

"Nor I," she cried, taking up her work. "But we shall never find it. The
house was all redecorated when we came in. Not one of the workmen has
become suddenly wealthy."

"I shall no longer begrudge these poor old souls their silent watch over
these walls that hold their treasure," I now remarked.

"Then you have lost your nervousness?"

"Quite."

"So have I," laughed Mrs. Packard, showing me for the first time a face
of complete complacency and contentment.

CHAPTER VI. AT THE STAIR-HEAD

I spent the evening alone. Mrs. Packard went to the theater with friends
and Mayor Packard attended a conference of politicians. I felt my
loneliness, but busied myself trying to sift the impressions made upon
me by the different members of the household.

It consisted, as far as my present observation went, of seven persons,
the three principals and four servants. Of the servants I had seen
three, the old butler, the nurse, and the housemaid, Ellen. I now liked
Ellen; she appeared equally alive and trustworthy; of the butler I
could not say as much. He struck me as secretive. Also, he had begun to
manifest a certain antagonism to myself. Whence sprang this antagonism?
Did it have its source in my temperament, or in his? A question possibly
not worth answering and yet it very well mig