"It was the year of Captain Kidd!" Pat reminded me; and went on, as if in desperation: "In the hole of _our_ cave, to-day, was _that_ box, from Miss Robinson's house in Bennington. There was no lock to it; and I suppose Mr. Storm could not wait to have one made. He was in a hurry. I understand why, but I cannot tell you that. All I can tell is, _it was there_. I pulled it out from the hole--it was not so heavy!--and not more than thirty centimetres long. Inside was sand, and mixed up with the sand many, many jewels--oh, a fortune in jewels. I know, because I took the box to my room--nobody was up, so no one saw me. I spread on the floor a bed-coverlet and poured out the sand on it. Then I could count the beautiful stones without the fear they would roll away. There are a hundred pearls, oh, but large ones, big as peas; and some rubies, and diamonds in the dozen--emeralds, too. I do not know too much of such things, but they must all have cost ten, twenty, or maybe more thousands of dollars." As she finished, breathless, Pat looked from one to the other of us. And Jack and I dared not look at each other, or our eyes would have said, "Told you so!" "He put these things to make us rich, where we would think they were _ours_," the girl went on. "It was noble. He would never have confessed--never let us know what we owed to him. If you and me had not seen him last night--and if I had not known the box--we should have believed. We should have sold the jewels and paid our debts. And I--but what use to think of what I could have done? What I _must_ do, is to tell him I _know_--yes, the _minute_ he comes back to our house. It will be to-day, for now we can guess what has kept him so busy. He has somehow got these jewels--not set, so they may seem to be very old. But how--_how_ did he get them--a poor man like him?" "However he got them, it's all _right_," Jack soothed her. "I am sure!" she said proudly. "He was to try and find money. He told me that at Bretton Woods. He finds it. But he does not keep. He gives it to me, like this! Of course it does no good. Of course I cannot take. I wish I could see him _here_ at this house, with you to help me talk of last night." Well, so it was arranged, according to her wish: that we should send over to his "diggings," as he calls them, and see if Peter had arrived. The car was despatched with the chauffeur and a hasty note from me; and Patty waited with us for news. But there was no news. Mr. Storm had not come, and his landlady, the village dressmaker, knew nothing of his movements. There, my dear, I must leave my story. About this episode you now know as much as I do, or any of us. But doesn't it make you love Peter? When he told me his _secret_, he never breathed a word of this intention.