“Your silence will do. What can I say but that it was like you? To traffic upon a helpless man’s miserable apprehensions for your own sordid ends--and that man your father! To do this while holding a like threat over another’s head--your brother’s--still for your own pitiful ends. And all the time who knows but you may be the murderer?” “I am not the murderer. You persist, and--and it’s too cruel.” “Cruel! To you? Who killed Modred?” “I believe it was dad.” “I believe upon my soul it’s a lie!” “He thinks it himself, anyhow.” “Is it any good saying to you that a man of his habits, as he was then, might be driven to believe anything of himself?” “Why did he have the braces in his pocket, then?” “He had carried the boy up-stairs--you know that. He had been bathing and his things were scattered.” “It isn’t all. Modred had discovered his secret.” In spite of myself I started. “What secret?” I said. “Where the coins were hidden.” “What coins?” For the first time he looked at me with a faint leer of cunning. “I won’t condescend to prevaricate for any purpose,” I said. “I do know about the treasure, because he told me himself, but I swear I know to this day nothing about its hiding-place.” He looked at me curiously. “Well,” he said, “Modred had found it out, anyway.” “How do you know?” “Didn’t he offer to give Zyp something in exchange for a kiss that night we watched them out of the window?” “Go on.” “It was gold. I saw it. He must have found his way to the store and stolen it. Mayn’t it be, now, that dad discovered he had been robbed, and took the surest way to prevent it happening again?” “No--a thousand times!” I spoke stanchly, but my heart felt sick within me. He was silent. “So,” I said, in a high-strung voice, “this was your manner of business during my absence; that the way to the means that helped you up to London? A miserable discovery for you--for I gather from your words you, too, found out about the hiding-place. You had better have left it alone--a million times you had better.” Still he was silent. “Did Zyp know, too?” “No--not from my telling. I can’t answer for what she may have found out for herself. She sees in the dark.” “How much did you have, from first to last? But I suppose you helped yourself whenever you needed it?” “I didn’t--I swear I didn’t! I never put finger on the stuff till dad handed it over to me. What right had he to keep us without a penny all those years, when riches were there for the taking?” “He could do what he liked with his own, I conclude. At any rate, the end justified the means. A pretty use you made of your vile extortion--a bloody vengeance is the price you pay for it!” At that he gave a sudden cry. “I’m lost--I know it! Help me to escape. Renny, help me to escape.” “Do you think you deserve that of me, Jason?” He dropped upon his knees, an abject, wailing figure.