A relish was added to the excitement which the events produced throughout the Cove next day by the gossips’ speculations on Binwell’s disappointment—how he must have looked, what he must have said, when he felt sufficiently safe to open the box and found it full of sand. For he made good his escape, the pursuit being given over instantly upon the discovery that he had stolen nothing worth having. The constable contented himself with declaring that he should never again come within the district save to be ushered into the county jail. The neighborhood cronies congregated at the store and talked the matter over, each having some instance of Binwell’s duplicity to relate. All were willing enough to credit Peter Sawyer’s account of how Skimpy had been deluded into assisting Binwell’s scheme by the pretense that there were only papers hidden in the box which he had a right to destroy. Notwithstanding the fact that no suspicion rested upon him, Skimpy was not for a long time so blithe a lad as before he climbed down Keedon Bluffs. And he is ready now to believe that his father learned a good many things in those years of seniority which are still unknown to him, and he has some respect for experience. It is not necessary to scald him now in order to convince him that boiling water is—as it is said to be—hot. The blind man’s story was amply confirmed by a letter from the surviving heir who had been told by his father of the hoax of the hidden box, and who had always relished its mystery, since it had served its purpose and had diverted plunder and search from the hoard concealed in the wall. At Hiram Guyther’s cabin, however, the gossip had no zest. For the first time a deep gloom had fallen on the blind soldier’s face as he sat in his enforced inactivity, a-wasting his life away in the chimney corner. His gray hair hardly seemed so incongruous now, for an ashen furrowed pallid anxiety had replaced the florid tints of cheek and brow. Sometimes he would rise from his chair and stride back and forth the length of the room; now and again a deep sigh would burst from him. “I wouldn’t mind it, Ab,” Mrs. Guyther would say in her comforting soft drawl. “Ye done all ye could—more ’n enny other man would, ’flicted with blindness. Fairly makes me shiver whenst I ’member ye an’ Rosamondy walkin’ along them cliffs in the dead o’ night like ye done.” “She’ll never be able ter live through it when she finds out ’bout her dad; she’s a gal ez be a-goin’ ter hev a heap o’ feelin’s,” he would groan, with prescient grief for the gay Rosamond’s future woes. “It’ll plumb kill her ter know she don’t kem o’ honest folks. Ef it don’t—it’s wuss yit; fur it’ll break her sperit, an’ that’s like livin’ along ’thout a soul; sorter like walkin’ in yer sleep.” And even Ike’s mother could say naught to this.