Breitmann swayed, and fell against the side of the fireplace. "It is nothing; lost my balance for a moment. Will you open it, sir?" "Lost his balance?" muttered Fitzgerald. "He looks groggy. Why?" This was not a time for speculation. All rushed after the admiral, who laid the case on his desk, and took out his keys. None of them would turn in the ancient lock. With an impatient gesture, which escaped the others, the secretary seized Mr. Donovan's hammer, inserted the claw between the lock and the catch, and gave a powerful wrench. The lid fell back, crooked and scarred. The admiral put on his Mandarin spectacles. With his hands behind his back, he bent and critically examined the contents. Then, very carefully, he extracted a packet of papers, yellow and old, bound with heavy cording. Beneath this packet was a medal of the Legion of Honor, some rose leaves, and a small glove. "Know what I think?" said the admiral, stilling the shake in his voice. "This belonged to that mysterious Frenchman who lived here eighty years ago. I'll wager that medal cost some blood. By cracky, what a find!" "And the poor little glove and the rose leaves!" murmured the girl, in pity. "It seems like a crime to disturb them." "We shan't, my child. Our midnight friend wasn't digging yonder for faded keepsakes. These papers are the things." The admiral cut the string, and opened one of the documents. "H'm! Written in French. So is this," looking at another, "and this. Here, Laura, cast your eye over these, and tell us why some one was hunting for them." Fitzgerald eyed Breitmann thoughtfully. The whole countenance of the man had changed. Indeed, it resembled another face he had seen somewhere; and it grew in his mind, slowly but surely, as dawn grows, that Breitmann was not wholly ignorant in this affair. He had not known who had been working at night; but that dizziness of the moment gone, the haste in opening the case, the eagerness of the search last night; all these, to Fitzgerald's mind, pointed to one thing: Breitmann knew. "I shall watch him." Laura read the documents to herself first. Here and there was a word which confused her; but she gathered the full sense of the remarkable story. Her eyes shone like winter stars. "Father!" she cried, dropping the papers, and spreading out her arms. "Father, it's the greatest thing in the world. A treasure!" "What's that, Laura?" straining his ears. "A treasure, hidden by the soldiers of Napoleon; put together, franc by franc, in the hope of some day rescuing the emperor from St. Helena. It is romance! A real treasure of two millions of francs!" clapping her hands. "Where?" It was Breitmann who spoke. His voice was not clear. "Corsica!" "Corsica!" The admiral laughed like a child. Right under his very nose all these years, and he cruising all over the chart! "Laura, dear, there's no reason in the world why we shouldn't take the yacht and go and dig up this pretty sum."