“That night, you remember,” he cried, passionately, “when I dropped a coin and he saw it--that was the beginning. Oh, he has a hateful greed for such things. A wicked, suspicious nature. He soon began cajoling, threatening, worming my secret out of me. I had to silence him now and again or he would have exposed me to the world and wrenched my one devouring happiness from me.” “You gave him some of the coins?” “He has had enough to melt into a grill as big as St. Lawrence’s, and he shall fry on it some day. More than that--more than that!” He clenched his hands in impotent fury. “There was one thing in the jar worth a soul’s ransom--a cameo, Renalt, that I swear was priceless--I, who speak from intuition--not knowledge. The beauty of the old world was crystallized in it. An emperor would have pawned his crown to buy it.” His words brought before me with a shock the night of Modred’s death, when I had stood listening on the stairs. “One evening--a terrible evening, Renalt--when I went to fetch a new bribe for him from the hiding-place (he demanded it before he would move a finger to help that poor boy upstairs), I found this cameo gone. He swore he hadn’t set eyes on it, and to this day I believe he lied. How can I tell--how can I tell? Twenty times a week, perhaps, my vice brought the secret almost within touch of discovery. Sometimes for days together I would carry this gem in my pocket, and take it out when alone and gaze on it with exquisite rapture. Then for months it would lie safely hidden again. If I had dropped and lost it in one of my fits--as he suggested--should I have never heard of it again? Renalt”--he held out two trembling hands to me--“it was the darling of my heart! Find it for me and I will bless you forever.” He ended almost with a sob. I could have wept myself over the pitiful degeneration of a noble intellect. “Father, you said he cajoled--threatened. Didn’t you ever reveal to him----” “Where the jar was hid? No; a million times, no! He would have sucked me dry of the last coin. He knew that I had made a rich find--no more.” “And on the strength of that vague surmise you have allowed him to blackmail you all these years?” He hung his head, as if cruelly abashed. “You don’t know the man as I do,” he cried, in a low voice. “He is a devil--not a man.” I was utterly shocked and astounded. “Well,” I said at length. “I won’t ask you for your secret. To share it with any one would kill the zest, no doubt.” He lifted his head with a thin wail. I put my hand gently on his shoulder. “Dad,” I said, “I must never leave you again.” He seized my hand and kissed it. “Harkee, Renalt,” he whispered. “Many are gone, but there are some left. Could I find out where the cameo is, we would take it, and what remains, and leave this hateful place--you and I--and bury ourselves in some beautiful city under the world, where none could find us, and live in peace and comfort to the end.”