“It was a long time, but I had learnt to be patient. I was not unhappy; I loved your father, I loved the Colonel's little daughter; and I was very fond of you. All these things were small to me in comparison to my vow and the finding the jewels of the god, but they shortened the years of waiting. Then a year before the young mistress was eighteen came the shot through the window. I did not know who had fired it, but I saw that your father's life was in danger, and I said to myself, 'He will tell the young sahib what he knows about the bracelet.' After you had gone into the library I opened the door quietly, and listened. I could hear much that was said, but not all. I heard him say something about a snuff box, and some means of finding the lost things being hidden in it, and that he had kept them all these years in a secret hiding place, which he described. You were to search for the diamonds, and I guessed from that that he did not know what he was to be told when the young memsahib came of age, or perhaps when she was eighteen. It was not until I had thought over what I heard that I came to the conclusion that if I could find the things he spoke of I might be able to find the jewels. By that time your father had gone to bed. I was foolish not to have been patient, but my blood boiled after waiting for eighteen or nineteen years. The god seemed to have sent me the chance, and it seemed to me that I should take it at once. I knew that he generally slept with his window open, and it seemed to me that it would be easy to slip in there and to get those things from the cabinet. I knew where the ladder was kept. I took a file from the tool chest and cut the chain.” Here Mark dropped the letter in horror. “Good Heavens!” he exclaimed. “Then Bastow spoke truly, and he was not my father's murderer! Never did a single suspicion of Ramoo enter my head. This is appalling; but I cannot read any more now. It is time for me to go and dress for dinner.” “Is anything the matter with you, Mark?” Millicent asked anxiously, as she met him in the drawing room; “you look as white as a sheet.” “I have been reading Ramoo's letter, and he has told me some things that have surprised and shocked me. I will tell you about them after dinner, dear. It is a long story, but you won't have to wait until Dick and the Gregs are gone. They are interested in all that interests us, and shall hear the letter read. No; I think I will ask them and Dick to come in the morning. I should not like anything to sadden the first evening of our coming home.” “Then it is something sad.” “Yes, but it does not affect us, though it does affect Ramoo. Now clear your brow, dear, and dismiss the subject from your mind, else our guests will fancy that our marriage has not been altogether so satisfactory as they had hoped.” “As if they could think such a thing as that, Mark,” she said indignantly. “But there is the sound of wheels; it is Mr. Chetwynd's gig.”