A week! Arthur Gwyn pinched his lower lip in meditation. Seven days. So far as he was concerned, if he had seven years to make reparation he could not see daylight. “And get out of your mind that you’re going to find the Chelford treasure,” said Dick, and the shock made the man jump. “Why, how do you know----” he stammered. “I know all about that. I tell you that you can cut it out. That isn’t a solution. It’s only robbing Peter to pay Peter; for if there is any gold--and heaven knows I doubt it--it belongs to Harry and must go to Harry. What about Leslie’s fortune? Of course that is non-existent. Does she know?” “I told her this morning,” said the man, and now Dick understood his depression. “She took it like a brick; in fact, she seemed almost happy about it. And why, I can’t for the life of me understand. Women are queer things.” “I know one woman who is the most wonderful thing in the world,” said Dick softly. He did not wait to see Leslie, but left as hurriedly as he came, and the man who had been lying at full length beneath the laurel bushes waited till the two men had disappeared, and then crawled painfully and carefully back to the road, mounted the wall, and stepped out for the nearest telegraph office to send his news. XXXVI Mr. Gilder arrived at his cottage in the evening and found his “tenant” sitting on the doorstep smoking a pipe. Fortunately, the cottage was in the middle of a thin plantation of trees, and the river at the back made an approach from that direction impossible. Nevertheless, Mr. Gilder was alarmed at the lack of precaution the man showed. “If you’re going to stay here you’ve got to keep inside the house. I tell you I don’t want people to know that you’re living here. Now, what is the big news?” “Come inside,” said Thomas, with a grin, and his host felt that the invitation into his own house was a little superfluous. Thomas was not a good story-teller, and it was with many “You see what I mean’s” and at inordinate length that he unravelled his tangled narrative. “I’d been hanging round the house all the morning. I wanted to have a talk with the young lady----” “What about?” demanded the other. “About a certain thing----” “Now, see here, Thomas: you’re not to speak to Miss Gwyn--do you understand? You’re not to approach her and you’re not to go anywhere near the house.” “Well, it’s not a bad thing that I was there this morning,” grinned Thomas. “Because I heard something that will make you jump!” It took half-an-hour for him to repeat, with more or less accuracy, the conversation he had heard on the lawn. When he came to the vital point, Mr. Gilder whistled. Arthur Gwyn had managed the Chelford estate without his assistance, and Gilder was as ignorant of the particulars of the property as if it were in some other office. “Fifty thousand, eh?” he mused. “Well, that’s more than Arthur Gwyn will collect in a hurry.”