"Yes; I agree to it."

"And to keep the secret?"

"On the conditions I named."

"I am satisfied with the conditions. If you and I don't get this money, somebody else will, who has no more right to it than we have."

"But who owns the money?" asked Leopold, whose views of an honest policy required him to settle this question first.

"n.o.body."

"n.o.body!" exclaimed the young man. "It must belong to somebody."

"No it don't."

"How can that be?"

"The owner is dead and gone."

"Then it belongs to his heirs."

"He has no heirs."

"Who is he, anyhow?"

"He isn't anybody now. Didn't I say he was dead and gone?" demanded Miss Liverage, impatiently.

"Well, who was he, then?"

"I don't know."

"It's very strange," mused Leopold.

"I know it's strange. I am the only person living who knows anything about this money. If I don't take it, somebody else will, or it will stay in the ground till the end of the world," said the woman. "It's a plain case; and I think the money belongs to me as much as it does to anybody else."

"Where is it buried?"

Before she would answer this question, Miss Liverage satisfied herself that Leopold understood the bargain they had made, and was ready to abide by all its conditions. With the proviso he had before insisted upon, the young man agreed to the arrangement.

"I don't know exactly where the money was buried," continued the owner of the great secret.

"O, you don't!" exclaimed Leopold, rising from his chair, and bursting into a laugh. "Then this is a 'wild goose chase.'"

"No, it isn't. But now you have agreed to the terms, I will tell you all about it. Sit down; for I don't want to scream out what I have to say.

Will any one hear us?"

"No; I think not."

"Won't your father?"

"No, he has gone up to Squire Wormbury's."

Miss Liverage drew her chair up to the cheerful wood fire that blazed in the Franklin stove, and Leopold seated himself in the corner nearly opposite her, with his curiosity intensely excited by what he had already heard.

"In the first place do you know whatever became of Harvey Barth's diary?" Miss Liverage began.

"I haven't the least idea; but he said it was stolen from him, and he was going to get it when he went to New York," replied Leopold, deeply interested even in this matter.

"But he never found it, and I don't believe anybody stole it. I think it is in this house now. Our first business is to find it."

"We couldn't find it in the time of it, and I don't believe we can now."

"We must find it, for that diary will tell us just where the money is buried."

"You never will find the diary or the money."

"Don't be too fast. Harvey told me where the money was buried. It was under the cliffs at High Rock," added Miss Liverage.

"The cliffs are about a mile long."

"The money was buried in the sand."

"The beach under High Rock is half a mile long, and it would be a winter's job to dig it all over. But who hid the money there?"

"A man who was wrecked in the brig."

"Was it Harvey Barth?"

"No; the man was a pa.s.senger and called himself Wallbridge; but Harvey thought this was not his real name."

"That was the name of the pa.s.senger as it was printed in the newspaper."

"Harvey wrote down all he knew about him in his diary. He buried his money--twelve hundred dollars in gold--on the beach; and in the diary the place is described. Harvey inquired about the pa.s.senger in Rockland; but no one knew anything about him."

"Twelve hundred in gold," said Leopold, musingly.

"Yes; and I have agreed to give you nearly half of it."

"If we find it," added the young man, who considered the information rather too indefinite for entire success.

"I think we can find it."

"Did Harvey Barth tell you just where the money was buried?"

"He said it was buried on the beach. He talked a great deal about it the day before he died, and said, if he ever got well enough, he should go and get it; and then he would pay me handsomely for all I had done for him. I was a nurse in the hospital, you see, and was his only companion.

He felt very bad about the loss of his diary, and told me all about it.

He said he put it in the flue of the fireplace, because there was no closet in the room. Now, if n.o.body stole it, the diary must be there yet. I have looked into the flue, but I couldn't see anything of it; and I have made up my mind that it dropped down somewhere."