When Rees, now again feverish with excitement, told him his adventures in thrilling whispers, Sep was carried away with astonishment and delight, which reached their climax on the production of the piece of metal which Rees had picked up in the darkness. For this proved to be, as the latter had supposed, a coin, heavy, clumsy, of a fashion they had never seen; but it was gold, genuine gold. The young men looked at it, rubbed it, turned it over reverently in their hands. There was a romance about this gold, the property of a king long since passed out of reach of the need of it, and guarded for more than two centuries by a dead man, which appealed to the imagination. “You think it was Lord Hugh of Thirsk I saw down there, don’t you?” asked Rees in a low voice. “Who else should it be? Did you notice his dress?” “No, nothing but his eyes, staring straight at me, I tell you, like those of a living man. I thought he was alive. If he had been dead two hundred and forty years, he would be crumbled to dust, wouldn’t he?” “I don’t know. Shall you go down there again?” “No,” answered Rees, with a shiver. “I don’t think so. I--I suppose it’s sentimentality, but even if he has down there with him the thousands that old beggar expects, I don’t like the idea of robbing a dead man of what he’s watched over for more than two hundred years.” “Well,” said Sep, who, as usual, was ready to chime in with the views of his companion, “you mustn’t let him know what you’ve found then; for he’s a greedy old hunks, and as cynical as they make ’em. Let’s keep him out of it altogether if we can.” The words were hardly out of his mouth when both were startled by Goodhare’s voice. This gentleman, who was not likely to lose anything for want of a little watchfulness, had conceived the idea that something was likely to turn up this evening, and had managed, in his praiseworthy intention of looking after his own interests, to scale the outer wall of the castle with the help of the ivy. He heard Sep’s words, but affected not to have done so, since any little resentment he might feel would “keep,” and to show it now would be inconvenient and even dangerous. “Are you there, boys?” he asked therefore in a low voice, speaking in a mild and patriarchal tone. “Yes,” answered Rees, with ill-humor which he did not hide. He had slipped the old coin into his pocket at the first sound of the librarian’s voice; but the action did not escape Goodhare’s keen eyes. As the latter advanced and took his place slowly on the ground by the younger men, it was evident to him that something of great interest had occurred. The disordered and dirty state of Rees’s clothes, the frayed rope, the excitement under which both young men were laboring, all spoke eloquently of some discovery. “So you’ve been down, I see, and I see also that you’ve found something. Come, lad, out with it; I’m sure by your face that I did not set you to work in vain.” Rees moved uneasily.