"I ain’t trying to explain them. I don’t have to—just like I told that detective feller. I give it as my opinion that somebody is trying to tie something on Ralph. But no evidence they could show me would make me believe he was a bank burglar—nossir!" Suddenly Lorna shrieked and ran at him. The old lightkeeper skipped out of her path with surprising agility. "Aw—now—Lorny!" he gasped, "don’t be too hard on a fellow." "Tobias Bassett! Those eggs!" "Oh, sugar! They be a mess, now, ain’t they?" And he chuckled. CHAPTER XXIV UNDERSTANDING It is admitted that those eggs saved Tobias Bassett from feeling the full weight of the young woman’s wrath. And that is as well. For the eggs were by this time absolutely useless for any other purpose. One cannot poach eggs for twenty minutes and pronounce them edible. "And this toast! What a black mess!" scolded Lorna. "The tea must have been boiling half an hour, too. Tobias Bassett, would you serve such a meal as that to your poor, sick sister?" "Oh, sugar! I tell you I ain’t no fancy cook, Lorny. I—I guess I’ll go up and fill the lamp. Zeke ain’t going to be with us to-day. My, my! hear that wind, will ye?" He was glad to get out of the kitchen. That young woman, he opined, was some spitfire! But he chuckled hugely as he clumped up the stairs. "I dunno whether my matchmaking is so tarnal bad, after all," he reflected. "She was scare’t Ralph was in trouble because she does care for him—just as sure as aigs is aigs." Perhaps, too, it was better for Lorna that she had to give her attention just then to the preparation of a more dainty repast for the invalid than Tobias could have furnished. "Poor Miss Heppy!" she sighed. Her thoughts reverted again to Ralph. So, he was not poor. He did not deserve the pity she had been wasting on him. Or was it wasted? The fact that he had possibly not even the reason of poverty for entering into that scheme to rob the Clinkerport Bank did not, after all, clear him of suspicion. Lorna could not—as Tobias Bassett did—flout the evidence of the address book and the penknife. The atmosphere was not immediately cleared of doubt. The young woman did not know much about judicial procedure or the laws governing circumstantial evidence; but she was quite sure that Ralph Endicott would have to explain away the discoveries at the bank that pointed so directly to his participation in the burglary. And the curious thing he had done in leaving town! How explain that mystery? He had evidently shipped his trunk and taken the train himself for New Bedford; yet he had returned to Clinkerport during the evening. At daybreak he was walking the railroad track at Peehawket Cove. How had he got there from Clinkerport?