“Do with me as you will. You will not find them! I know nothing about them,” faltered the desperate old man. He was safe against arrest, he hoped. “Then, I will serve the warrant,” remarked the Captain, as Andrew Fraser’s head fell upon his breast. A fortune lost, and now, shame and perhaps prison awaited him. “One moment,” politely said Major Hardwicke. “Do not serve the warrant. I will surrender the Crown’s property, which I have discovered under the floor of this man’s study, where he feloniously hid them after denying their possession.” “Thief and deceiver!” shrieked Andrew Fraser. “You lied your way into my house! You have now conspired against my dead brother’s estate!” He was shaking as with a palsy in his impotent rage. “And you would rob me!” “You hardened old scoundrel! I will give you now just half an hour,” sternly said Major Hardwicke, “to consider the propriety of resigning instantly your executorship of your brother’s estate in favor of your son, Douglas Fraser. He is honest! You are unfit to control your ward! You can also first file your written consent to the immediate marriage of your ward, Nadine Fraser Johnstone, to myself, and apply to have your accounts passed and approved upon your discharge as guardian upon her marriage. This alone will save you from a felon’s cell. She shall be free. Douglas Fraser may be made the sole trustee of her estate until the age of twenty-one. On these two conditions alone will I consent to veil the shame of your brother and spare you, for we have traced the stolen jewels, step by step, with the list, the insurance, and the delivery by Hugh Johnstone to you. If you wish to stand your trial for complicity in the theft and concealing stolen goods, you may. General Willoughby, General Abercromby, and the Viceroy of India have watched these jewels on their way. And I came here only to recover them, and to free that white slave, your poor niece!” There was the sound of broken wailing sobs, and the three officers left their detected wrong-doer alone. Out on the lawn, the young soldiers joined General Wragge, who now looked impatiently at his watch. It was but a quarter of an hour when old Andrew Fraser tottered to the front door. “What must I do? I care not for myself!” he cried plucking at Major Hardwicke’s sleeve. “Only save Douglas, my boy, this public shame!” “It rests all in your hands, Sir,” gravely answered the lover. “Shall I call Miss Johnstone down now to have you express your consent and sign these papers in the presence of the General?” Major Hardwicke saw his enemy weakening, even as a child. “Yes, yes, anything, only get her away out of my sight--out of my life!” groaned the broken old miser, whose sin had found him out. “But, you’ll keep all this from Douglas--the story of a father’s disgrace? I did it all for Hugh!”