--he admired them so! He
had never dreamed of finding one here. I told him it was his inside
pocket--he called it his 'shy pocket.'"

"A good name for it, too," commented Gladys. "Nobody would ever think to
find a pocket there."

Lillian had suddenly ceased to speak. She had suited the action to the
word and slipped her own fingers into the pocket. There was something
within. She drew it forth, startled, her pale face all contorted and
ghastly. It was a bit of stone, of white stone, fashioned by curious
nature in the similitude of a lily, wrought in the darkness, the silence
of the depths of the earth. Lillian had previously seen such things; she
recognized the efflorescence of a limestone cavern. She sprang up
suddenly with a scream that rang through the room with the force and
volume of a clarion tone.

"This child has been in a cave!" she shrilled, remembering the raid on
the moonshiners' cavern. "He is not dead. He is stolen, _stolen_!"

The logic of the possibilities, cemented by her renewal of frantic hope,
had constructed a stanch theory. She was reasoning on its every phase.
The coercion of this significant discovery had suggested the truth. "This
coat was left as a blind, a bluff, to cover the tracks of a crime.
Gladys, Gladys, think--_think_!"

But poor Gladys, in her deep mourning gown, all her splendid beauty
beclouded by grief, sadly shook her head, unconvinced. The child had
possibly found the stone, she argued.

"Would he not have shared his joy with every creature in the household?"
demanded Lillian. "Did he ever have a thought that I did not know?"

"It might have been given to him," Gladys sadly persisted.

"Remember his disposition, Gladys, his grateful little heart. He would
have worn us all out, showing the gift and celebrating the generosity of
the giver. How flattered he was, always, to be considered! He never
seemed in the least to care for the value of the thing. He would cherish
an empty spool from a friend's hand. It was wonderful how he loved to be
loved. I feel sure, I _know_, that coat was taken from him; and he is
alive, _stolen_."

And from this conviction she would not depart. It was a folly, a frenzy,
her two friends contended. Its indulgence would threaten her sanity. They
besought her to consider anew. The discovery of such a stone in this
mountain region was altogether devoid of significance. Right reason and
religion alike dictated submission to the decrees of Providence.