Bergan was naturally a good deal surprised at sight of the hidden hoard. It seemed scarcely credible that any man in his senses should care to lay up such idle store of the precious metals, which might otherwise be profitably employed in an easy process of self-augmentation. Still, he knew enough of his uncle's surly and suspicious character, and of his distrust of banks (which he had once heard him characterize as "ready sinks for fools' money"), to leave only room for a passing wonder. "I have brought you here, Master Bergan," said Rue, solemnly, "because this secret rightly belongs to you, as the future master of the Hall. It is the duty of each owner to make it known to his heir, on his deathbed, or earlier. The place was contrived by Sir Harry, because there was something like it in the English Bergan Hall, which served for a hiding place for men and women in troublous times; and he provided for the keeping and handing down of the secret, in the same way as it, had been done there. It was only to be known to the owner and the heir." "Then how came you to know it?" asked Bergan. "I will tell you. When the third Harry Bergan was at the point of death, his heir was in Europe. The person whom he most trusted, in the world, was his body-servant, Cato. He gave the secret to him, to be kept till the heir's return. Cato was my great-great-great grandfather. He thought the same thing might happen again, and the secret be lost; so, on his deathbed, he told it to his son, and the son told it to his son, and so on, till my father, who had no son, told it to me. So, you see, the secret has run down in the black blood alongside of the white blood, and been kept just as sacredly. But the white blood has never known it till now; when I tell it to you, because I have no child living, and Brick is still too young to be trusted with such a matter." "What a strange circumstance!" said Bergan, deeply interested. "Has the place ever been used except as a storeroom for valuables?" "Only once, to my knowledge. During the Revolution, Colonel Bergan was hidden here some days, when a party of British were quartered on the premises,--some of the same party that Sergeant Jasper afterwards captured." She paused for a moment, while Bergan silently looked round the narrow walls; and then she resumed. "You see what use Master Harry makes of the place. And perhaps you know him well enough to understand that he will never tell any one where he keeps his money, until his breath is almost out of his body. That is why I brought you here. I cannot expect to outlive him; and if he should die suddenly, or with the secret only half-way off his tongue, it would die with him." "Perhaps you have done well," said Bergan, after a moment of thought. "Certainly, I shall regard it only as a trust for the future owner of the Hall, whoever he may be."