Miss Drewitt, who was standing with her hand on the latch of the door leading upstairs, as a hint that the interview was at an end, could not restrain her indignation.

“Your father and his friends have gone off to secure my uncle’s treasure, and you come straight on here,” she cried, hotly.  “Do you think that there is no end to his good-nature?”

“Treasure?” said the other, with a laugh.  “Why, that idea was knocked on the head when the map was burnt.  Even Chalk wouldn’t go on a roving commission to dig over all the islands in the South Pacific.”

“I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said the girl; “my uncle fully intended to burn it.  He was terribly upset when he found that it had disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” cried Mr. Tredgold, in accents of unmistakable amazement.  “Why, wasn’t it burnt after all?  The captain said it was.”

“He was going to burn it,” repeated the girl, watching him; “but somebody took it from the bureau.”

“Took it?  When?” inquired the other, as the business of the yachting cruise began to appear before him in its true colours.

“The afternoon you were here waiting for him,” said Miss Drewitt.

“Afternoon?” repeated Mr. Tredgold, blankly.  “The afternoon I was——­” He drew himself up and eyed her angrily.  “Do you mean to say that you think I took the thing?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” said the girl.  “I suppose you won’t deny that your friends have got it?”

“Yes; but you said that it was the afternoon I was here,” persisted the other.

Miss Drewitt eyed him indignantly.  The conscience-stricken culprit of a few minutes before had disappeared, leaving in his stead an arrogant young man, demanding explanations in a voice of almost unbecoming loudness.

“You are shouting at me,” she said, stiffly.

Mr. Tredgold apologised, but returned to the charge.  “I answered your question a little while ago,” he said, in more moderate tones; “now, please, answer mine.  Do you think that I took the map?”

“I am not to be commanded to speak by you,” said Miss Drewitt, standing very erect.

“Fair-play is a jewel,” said the other.  “Question for question.  Do you?”

Miss Drewitt looked at him and hesitated.  “No,” she said, at last, with obvious reluctance.

Mr. Tredgold’s countenance cleared and his eyes softened.

“I suppose you admit that your father has got it?” said the girl, noting these signs with some disapproval.  “How did he get it?”

Mr. Tredgold shook his head.  “If those three overgrown babes find that treasure,” he said, impressively, “I’ll doom myself to perpetual bachelorhood.”

“I answered your question just now,” said the girl, very quietly, “because I wanted to ask you one.  Do you believe my uncle’s story about the buried treasure?”

Mr. Tredgold eyed her uneasily.  “I never attached much importance to it,” he replied.  “It seemed rather romantic.”