some business deal, I'm sure. I never could understand them,
and I don't want to. But it does seem queer that there is no record of
that fifteen thousand dollars being paid back."

"What does Captain Poland say about it?"

"Oh, he told Harry, very frankly, that father paid the money, and that
the receipt was sent to Mr. Blossom. But the latter says it can not be
found."

"And do you suspect Mr. Blossom?" asked Minnie, and her voice held a
challenge.

"Well," answered Viola slowly, "there isn't much of which to suspect
him. It isn't as if Captain Poland claimed to have paid father the
fifteen thousand dollars, and the money couldn't be found. It's only a
receipt for money which the captain admits having gotten back that is
missing. But it makes such confusion. And there are so many other things
involved--"

"You mean about the poisoning?"

"Yes. Oh, I wish it were all cleared up! Don't let's talk of it. I must
find out about Mr. Blossom going away. We shall have to get some one in
his place. Aunt Mary will be so disturbed--"

"Don't say that I told you!" cautioned Minnie. "Perhaps I should not
have mentioned it. Oh, dear, I am so miserable!" And she certainly
looked it.

"And so am I!" confessed Viola. "If only Harry would tell what he is
keeping back."

"You mean about that quarrel with your father?"

"Yes. And he acts so strangely of late, and looks at me in such a queer
way. Oh, I'm afraid, and I don't know what I'm afraid of!"

"I'm the same way, Viola!" admitted Minnie.

"I wonder why we two should have all the trouble in the world?"

And the two were miserable together.

They were not the only ones to suffer in those days. Captain Gerry
Poland could not drive Viola from his mind. To the yachtsman, she was
the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and he wondered if fortune
would ever make it possible for him to approach her again on the subject
that lay so close to his heart.

And then there was Bartlett. It was true he walked the streets--or
rather rode around them in his "Spanish Omelet"--a free man; yet the
finger of suspicion was constantly pointed at him.

More than once in the town he met people who sneered openly at him, as
if to say, "You are guilty, but we can't prove it." And once on the golf
course he went up to three men who had formerly been quite friendly and
suggested a game of golf, upon which one after another the others made
trivial excuses and begged to be excused. Upon this