"I sink ze li'l wil' ma'm'selle will come soon," he said, as he held my hand at parting; "zen we tell her, an' she be made vair happy." Forgotten was Buck and his fell purpose, forgotten was the lost Jeff Angel as, passing through Hebron at a swift walk, I presently broke into a run. Was this the same road, the same forest, the same sky, the same earth? Beautiful as it always had been, it was transfigured now. My Dryad! My lovely, innocent Dryad was free from the stigma which hypercritical moralists would have thrust upon her! I was hastening toward the proof with every breath I drew--toward the proof which had lain within reach of my hand all these weeks! My heart exulted with each onward spring, and I seemed light as air, so magically did my joy act upon me. Swiftly I ran, but the way had never been so long. I reached the Point. Scorning the bridge which heretofore had been a welcome aid in crossing the creek, I dashed into the water at a place where I knew it to be shallow, and a moment later was headed for the Dryad's Glade. Very soon thereafter I was kneeling before the rude hearth in the Lodge, gazing with flushed face and fascinated eyes at the front right-hand corner stone. It differed in no way from all the others. A rough-surfaced, imperfect square with an average width of ten or twelve inches, the irregular interstices between it and its neighbors being filled with earth. It was on a level with the others. There was nothing to indicate that it hid a secret which meant so much. Now that I had come; now that any moment I could prove the truth or falsity of Hannibal Ellsworth's statement, I hesitated. Perhaps he had lied even at the last. A man capable of the fiendish act he had committed would likewise be capable of this sardonic jest. If this were true--if, when I lifted the stone, nothing was revealed, what then? This torturing thought decided me. I leaped up, took from the table the knife which Buck Steele had driven through my journal, and with its point began to pick away the dirt between the crevices. I worked feverishly, and presently, dropping the knife, I gripped the stone and heaved. It moved. Again I strained backward, and now the rock turned partly in its bed, where it had lain secure for a score of years. Regardless of the jagged edges, I forced my fingers down the rough sides through the loosened dirt, clawed and burrowed until I had secured another and a stronger hold. Again I tugged, and up came my burden bodily--up and out. I flung it rolling on the plank floor, and trembling with anxiety gazed into the cavity it had left. I saw nothing. Nothing but the brown earth sides and the brown earth bottom. I sank backward with a groan. Ah! Hannibal Ellsworth! If you were alive, and these hands were at your throat! You trickster even in death! You chosen of Satan! You----A new thought came. Seizing the knife, I plunged it desperately into the hole, just as I would have thrust it in the black