p in the mountains into Maryland."

The hunchback began to twist his fingers.

"Where did he ride then? A man and a horse could not vanish."

"They did vanish," said my father.

"Now you utter fool talk!" cried Dillworth.

"I speak the living truth," replied my father. "Your brother David and
your horse disappeared out of sound and hearing--disappeared out of the
sight and knowledge of men--after he rode away from your door on that
fatal night."

"Well," said the hunchback, "since my brother David rode away from my
door--and you know that--I am free of obligation for him."

"It is Cain's speech!" replied my father.

The hunchback put back his long hair with a swift brush of the fingers
across his forehead.

"Dillworth," cried my father, and his voice filled the empty places of
the room, "is the mark there?"

The hunchback began to curse. He walked around my father and the girl,
the hair about his lank jaws, his fingers working, his face evil. In
his front and menace he was like a weasel that would attack some larger
creature. And while he made the great turn of his circle my father, with
his arm about the girl, stepped before the drawer of the table where the
pistol lay.

"Dillworth," he said calmly, "I know where he is. And the mark you felt
for just now ought to be there."

"Fool!" cried the hunchback. "If I killed him how could he ride away
from the door?"

"It was a thing that puzzled me," replied my father, "when I stood in
this house on the morning of your pretended robbery. I knew what had
happened. But I thought it wiser to let the evil thing remain a mystery,
rather than unearth it to foul your family name and connect this child
in gossip for all her days with a crime."

"With a thief," snarled the man.

"With a greater criminal than a thief," replied My father. "I was not
certain about this gold on that morning when you showed me the empty
boxes. They were too few to hold gold enough for such a motive. I
thought a quarrel and violent hot blood were behind the thing; and for
that reason I have been silent. But now, when the coins turn up, I see
that the thing was all ruthless, cold-blooded love of money.

"I know what happened in that room. When your brother David struck the
old secretary with his elbow, and the dozen indigo boxes fell and burst
open on the hearth, you thought a great hidden treasure was uncovered.
You thought swiftly. You had got the land by undue influence on your
senile