“To take him off his guard; but the rascal was cunning. Yet the pack shall know now we are not ignorant of what they hunt. Perhaps by the time they reappear--if ever--the quarry will have been run down by us, and Luvaine the centre of attraction.” CHAPTER XXV. “So,” said Sir David, “we sum up our conclusions. ’Twas the notorious Mr. Cutwater, _alias_ Turk, that represented the syndicate that robbed Luvaine’s father of the stone.” “One,” said Miss Angela, using her tender knuckles after the fashion of an auctioneer’s hammer. “’Twas somewhere here--on this estate bought out of the proceeds of his robberies--that he secreted the treasure.” “Two,” said Miss Angela. “And here his confederates sought him out, murdered him yonder, and made fruitless search for what he had sacrificed his life to hold.” “Three,” said Miss Angela, “and right worshipfully concluded.” “Peace, you bantam! ’Tis but the introduction to the argument.” “Oh! I crave your honour’s indulgence”--and she looked round merrily at Dennis, who stood respectfully to the back of her chair. “Now we gather,” said Sir David, with importance, “that of the ancient gang, only Mr. Fern hath cheated the gallows, to return at this eleventh hour to the search; but that he hath confided his plot to two or more----” “Lacking the greatness of the first rank of criminals,” put in Whimple impulsively--and so reddened to a fine after-glow of shame immediately he had spoken. They all laughed; and quoth Miss Angel: “How I love your inconsequence, Mr. Dennis. I think that sympathy with giant wickedness a very admirable foil to your humanity.” She had taken a great interest in the servant since her mediation had procured him justice. What if he _had_ been a figure familiar to her experience for years past? Only recent circumstance had presented him in the light that could appeal to her effectively--the melancholy twilight, in fact, of romance. Now she was bethinking herself how this mystic hermit of the thickets had lived out his twenty years or so of haunted solitude that he might at the end serve her sensibilities with a little passing thrill of excitement; and she felt grateful to him and very considerate of his hectic cheeks. “Their roses might have withered in the frost of death but for me,” she would ponder tenderly; and then her heart would take some resentment over the confident tyranny of his lord, that he had dared to sit in judgment on his intellectual superior. “For that the poor man is,” she thought. “And the other must learn that with us women, brute strength unadorned is not the highest appeal to our favour.” Here she dealt a little arbitrarily with justice; for the master was perhaps less a fool than the servant was an athlete. But the sentiment served her mood, and showed her the way to many small condescensions towards the poor fellow who had suffered such misjudgment.