Marie greatly admired the peacock, as it was the first time she had set eyes on the beautiful object. The glitter of the gold, the radiance of the many gems appealed to her feminine love of color, and she clapped her hands with delight when the gorgeous ornament glowed like a rainbow-hued star in the sunlight. The lovers sat down and admired the luck of the Inderwicks, which held a secret hard to solve, a secret which would, if guessed, bring a fortune to the last member of the family and restore the faded splendors of the line. The girl with her eyes fixed on the treasure, murmured words from the ancient prophecy:— “Jewels and gold from over-seas Will bring them peace and joy and ease.” Alan nodded. “If that is applied to this bird,” he said slowly, “it is perfectly true, since the riddle, when guessed, means a gigantic fortune. You will be a wealthy woman, Marie, and then I shall have some hesitation in keeping you to your engagement.” “Oh, Alan, darling, why?” asked the girl jumping up in dismay. “People might call me a fortune-hunter.” “I don’t see how they could, seeing that you love me now when I have next to nothing. And if the fortune is found it will be through you, dearest, so you will have a right to share it. And after all,” ended Marie earnestly and inconsequently, “what does it matter what people say seeing that we love one another?” Alan kissed her. “That being the case, Marie, I promise you that no wealth shall part us. But had we not better put the peacock away?” “Won’t we try and solve the riddle?” “It’s impossible. I’ve tried in every way to do so, and am still quite in the dark as to how that jewelled bird can indicate the hiding-place.” Marie took up the luck of her family and turned it round upside down, and looked at it from every side. “It does seem impossible,” she confessed with a reluctant sigh. “I suppose we must give up trying to guess its riddle for the present. Where shall we put it, Alan?” “In the cupboard, I suppose,” said the lawyer carelessly, and pointing to the dark oak press, out of which Sorley had produced the peacock when it first appeared on the scene; “it has always been there.” “If so,” said Marie shrewdly, “someone—Miss Grison for one—may know where to find it, and she is quite capable of telling Mr. Bakche who is in league with her, I am sure. No, Alan, I shall put it along with Uncle Ran’s private collection of gems,” and she moved towards the panel marked with a cross, which Fuller remembered very well. “Can you open it, Marie?” he asked, walking beside her to the place. “Yes! See!” She touched the hidden spring, and the panel slid aside into its groove. “Uncle Ran showed me how to work this before he left, in case—as he said—he should never come back.”