lifted garment after garment and laid them carefully on the bed. He
counted five coats and as many vests--and was racking his brains for some
plausible excuse for a nearer inspection, when she stopped in the midst
of her work, with the cheery remark:

"That will do for to-night. To-morrow I will look them all over for moths
before hanging them away in the closet."

And he had to go, leaving them lying there within reach of his hand, when
one glance at the lining of a certain coat which had especially attracted
his eye might have given him the one clue he most needed.

The room which had been allotted to him in this house was in the rear and
at the top of a steep flight of stairs. As he sought it that night, he
cast a quick glance through the narrow passageway opening just beyond his
own door. Would it be possible for him to thread those devious ways and
reach Mr. Roberts' room without rousing Mrs. Weston, who in spite of her
years had the alertness of a watchdog with eye and ear ever open? To be
found strolling through quarters where he had no business would be worse
than being suspected of taking a personal interest in the owner's
garments. He was of an adventurous turn, and ever ready to risk something
on the turn of a die, but not too much. A false move might hazard all;
besides, he remembered the airing these clothes were to get and the
nearness of the clothes-yard to the pump he so frequently patronized,
and all the chances which this gave for an inspection which would carry
little danger to one of his ready wit.

So he gave up the midnight search he might have attempted under other
circumstances, and shut his room from the moon and his eyes to sleep, and
dreamed. Was it of the great museum, with its hidden mystery enshrouding
its many wonders of high art, or of a far-off time and a far-off scene,
where in the stress of some great emotion the trembling hand of Carleton
Roberts had written on the back of this foolish clock for which he still
retained so great a fancy the couplet which he himself had so faithfully
memorized:

I love but thee,
And thee will I love to eternity.

At eight o'clock on the following morning the quick strokes of the
workman's hammer reawakened the echoes at the end of the building where
the big enclosed veranda was going up.

As the clock struck nine Mrs. Weston could be seen hanging up her
master's coats and trousers on a long line stretched across the
clothes-yard. T