"Oh, sugar!" muttered the lightkeeper, while Zeke shook his head. "Arad Thompson ain’t let out a peep," the surfman declared. "I don’t suppose he wants to shoulder all the loss. I don’t know anything about the law on it." He went out to the stairs and closed the door behind him. Lorna turned like a flash upon the old lightkeeper. "Tobias Bassett!" she ejaculated, "what is it now about Ralph?" "Heh?" She had managed to startle him that time. "Why, Lorna, I don’t know——" "What has happened to him? I heard you say something about his going to sea. What do you mean?" "Why, there’s a story that he went out from Peehawket Cove in a catboat yesterday morning. But we don’t know what he went for, or where he’s gone." "I heard you say it was an old tub. If he is out there and there is a storm coming up, what is going to become of him?" "Oh, sugar! Ralph’s a good sailor. You know he is. He wouldn’t likely run into no danger. When he see the storm coming he’d run for it somewhere. Sure!" "And where would he run, if he knew that the police were looking for him in every port up and down the Cape?" demanded the young woman. She brought out the question pantingly and one hand clutched at her bosom. Tobias stared. That Lorna Nicholet should display such abundant emotion puzzled him. "Good glory, Lorna!" he gasped. "Air _all_ women alike? You talk about Ralph just the same as Heppy does about our money. Ain’t a spark o’ hope in either of your hearts, I don’t believe. You talk like you was sure Ralph is mixed up in that burglary." "He is, isn’t he?" she demanded with sharpness. "At least," she supplemented, "he is accused." "I never thought, Lorny," the lightkeeper rejoined gravely, "that you’d go back on an old friend this-a-way. Why! if Ralph’s friends are going to believe such tommyrot about him, no wonder strangers—as ye might call ’em—air so fickle." "What do you mean, Tobias Bassett? Haven’t we reason enough to be suspicious of him?" "I can’t see it, Lorny." "Why! That penknife! And that address book! What of them?" Tobias shook his head, puckering his lips thoughtfully. "And see how he has acted! Going off without telling anybody where he is bound, or what he means to do. Oh! even if he isn’t guilty, I’ve no patience with him." "I kin see that," admitted Tobias reflectively. "There is more than that. You know there is!" cried Lorna, on the verge of tears at last. "He—he has lost his money and he may be desperately in need of some for—for a certain purpose. How do we know what temptation he may have been under these last few weeks? I—I feel condemned! I should have offered to help him!" She said it wildly, and fairly ran out of the kitchen again before Tobias could recover his powers of speech. On the stairway she stopped to wipe away her tears. Were they tears of rage, or of actual fear for Ralph Endicott’s safety? Lorna could scarcely have told had she been asked.