It struck him immediately that this Bible had not been much read either. But the leaves were thick enough to turn singly, the print was large, and if I Kings were present he felt that he had some chance of finding it. With pencil and paper beside him, and with the list of references in one hand, he therefore set himself methodically to the task. And he was twenty-six, and the blood of the adventurous Kings beat strongly in his veins. So when he had found the book and the chapter which headed the list, he ran his finger down the half-column to the third verse; and this is what he read: Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. Rawley was conscious of a slight chill of disappointment when he had written it down in his fine, beautifully exact, draftsman’s handwriting. But he went doggedly to work on the next reference nevertheless: _Psalms_, 73:7. Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish. This was no more promising, but he had promised to read, and this seemed to him the most practical method of getting at his grandfather’s secret purpose and thoughts. So he settled himself down to an evening’s hard labor with book and paper. He was just finishing the work when he heard his mother’s footsteps on the porch. Rather guiltily he closed the Bible and folded his notes, so that his mother, coming into the room, found Rawley standing before a large window, thoughtfully gazing out into the dark while he stuffed tobacco in his pipe. His mother was a religious woman and a member of the church, but she took her religion according to certain fixed rules. Reading the Bible casually, apparently for entertainment, would have required an explanation,--and Rawley did not want to explain, least of all to his mother. He listened with perfunctory interest to her account of the evening’s edifications (a Swedish missionary having lectured in his own tongue, with an interpreter) and escaped when he could to his room. He wanted to be alone where he could try and guess the riddle his grandfather had placed before him. That there was a message of some kind hidden away in the Scriptural quotations, Rawley felt absolutely certain. In the first place, they did not seem to him such passages as a devout person would cherish for the comfort they held. Moreover, certain verses had been repeated, although the text itself did not seem to justify such emphasis. Precious metals, and journeyings into rough country, he decided, was the dominant note of the citations and the net result was confusing to say the least. If his grandfather really intended that he should discover any meaning in the jumble, he should have furnished a key, Rawley told himself disgustedly, some time after midnight, when he had read the quotations over and over until his head ached and they seemed more meaningless than at first.