The news of his aunt's departure had changed everything. The steadfast desire to get to Gravesend, to find his father, had given way, at any rate for the moment, to a burning anxiety about Tinkler and the white stone. Had his aunt found them and taken them away? If she hadn't and they were still there, would it not be wise to get them at once? Because of course some one else might take the house and find the treasures. Yes, it would certainly be wise to go to-night, to get in by the front window--the catch had always been broken--to find his treasures, or at any rate to make quite sure whether he had lost them or not. No one noticed him as he came down the street, very close to the railings. There are so many boys in the streets in that part of the world. And the front window went up easily. He climbed in, dragging his crutch after him. He got up-stairs very quickly, on hands and knees, went straight to the loose board, dislodged it, felt in the hollow below. Oh, joy! His hands found the soft bundle of rags that he knew held Tinkler and the seal. He put them inside the front of his shirt and shuffled down. It was not too late to do a mile or two of the Gravesend road. But the moonflower--he would like to have one more look at that. He got out into the garden--there stood the stalk of the flower very tall in the deepening dusk. He touched the stalk. It was dry and hard--three or four little dry things fell from above and rattled on his head. "Seeds, o' course," said Dickie, who knew more about seeds now than he had done when he saved the parrot seeds. One does not tramp the country for a month, at Dickie's age, without learning something about seeds. He got out the knife that should have cut the string of the basket in the train, opened it and cut the stalk of the moonflower, very carefully so that none of the seeds should be, and only a few were, lost. He crept into the house holding the stalk upright and steady as an acolyte carries a processional cross. [Illustration: "HE MADE, WITH TRIPLE LINES OF SILVERY SEEDS, A SIX-POINTED STAR" [_Page 81_] The house was quite dark now, but a street lamp threw its light into the front room, bare, empty, and dusty. There was a torn newspaper on the floor. He spread a sheet of it out, kneeled by it and shook the moonflower head over it. The seeds came rattling out--dozens and dozens of them. They were bigger than sunflower seeds and flatter and rounder, and they shone like silver, or like the pods of the plant we call honesty. "Oh, beautiful, beautiful!" said Dickie, letting the smooth shapes slide through his fingers. Have you ever played with mother-of-pearl card counters? The seeds of the moonflower were like those. He pulled out Tinkler and the seal and laid them on the heap of seeds. And then knew quite suddenly that he was too tired to travel any further that night.