was robbed. With such another
rod of steel"--he pointed to a bar resting above the safe--"was I
struck--here." His hand touched for an instant a deep scar on his
temple and an involuntary shudder passed over the girl's frame.

But her face did not change nor the defiance of her eyes grow less.
She moved a step forward, and, as if to make way for her, the builder,
also, stepped aside. As he did so his hammer caught upon the little
ledge of the chimney projection which he had been testing and whose
hollow sound had aroused his curiosity. The small slab of marble
slipped and fell, though it had seemingly been securely plastered in
the wall. It left an aperture of a few inches, and the contractor
ejaculated:

"Pshaw! That's queer. Must have been loose, I never saw just such a
hole in such a place. I'm sorry, sir, yet----" He turned to address
the banker but paused, amazed. What had he done?

The effect of that trivial accident upon the owner of the building was
marvelous. He sprang to his feet, clasped his head with his hands, and
gazed upon that tiny opening with the fascination of horror. For a
moment it seemed as if his staring eyes would start from their sockets
and he gasped in his effort to breathe.

"Father! What is it? What ails you?"

But the distraught man tossed off his son's arm like one who needed
no support, and to whom each second of delay was unendurable.

"Look, look! What they told me--I believed--look, look!" then he
swayed and Adrian caught him.

But Margot's anxious love leaped to a swift comprehension of what
merely amazed the others.

"That hole! The bonds--the bonds are in that hole! That's what he
means. Look, look!"

Incredulous, but impelled by her insistence, the builder peered into
the opening. It was too small to admit his head and his gaze could
pass no further than its opposite side.

"There's nothing there, miss, but a hole, as he said."

She tossed him aside, not noticing, and thrust her arm down as far as
it would reach.

"A stick, a string, something--quick! It is deep."

Nobody moved, till she turned upon the Indian.

"For the master, Joe! a string and a weight. Quick, quick!"

The empty-handed son of the forest was the man who filled her need. A
new, well-leaded fishing line that had caught his fancy, passing down
the street, came from his pocket. She seized, uncoiled, and dropped it
down the hole.

"Oh! it is so deep. But we must get to the bottom. We must, even if