The moment the door had closed on them Dale sprang into action.  She seemed a different girl from the one who had left the room so inconspicuously such a short time before.  There were two bright spots of color in her cheeks and she was obviously laboring under great excitement.  She went quickly to the alcove doors—­they opened softly—­disclosing the young man who had said that he was Brooks the new gardener—­and yet not the same young man—­for his assumed air of servitude had dropped from him like a cloak, revealing him as a young fellow at least of the same general social class as Dale’s if not a fellow-inhabitant of the select circle where Van Gorders revolved about Van Gorders, and a man’s great-grandfather was more important than the man himself.

Dale cautioned him with a warning finger as he advanced into the room.

“Sh!  Sh!” she whispered.  “Be careful!  That man’s a detective!”

Brooks gave a hunted glance at the door into the hall.

“Then they’ve traced me here,” he said in a dejected voice.

“I don’t think so.”

He made a gesture of helplessness.

“I couldn’t get back to my rooms,” he said in a whisper.  “If they’ve searched them,” he paused, “as they’re sure to—­they’ll find your letters to me.”  He paused again.  “Your aunt doesn’t suspect anything?”

“No, I told her I’d engaged a gardener—­and that’s all there was about it.”

He came nearer to her.  “Dale!” he murmured in a tense voice.  “You know I didn’t take that money!” he said with boyish simplicity.

All the loyalty of first-love was in her answer.

“Of course!  I believe in you absolutely!” she said.  He caught her in his arms and kissed her—­gratefully, passionately.  Then the galling memory of the predicament in which he stood, the hunt already on his trail, came back to him.  He released her gently, still holding one of her hands.

“But—­the police here!” he stammered, turning away.  “What does that mean?”

Dale swiftly informed him of the situation.

“Aunt Cornelia says people have been trying to break into this house for days—­at night.”

Brooks ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of bewilderment.  Then he seemed to catch at a hope.

“What sort of people?” he queried sharply.

Dale was puzzled.  “She doesn’t know.”

The excitement in her lover’s manner came to a head.  “That proves exactly what I’ve contended right along,” he said, thudding one fist softly in the palm of the other.  “Through some underneath channel old Fleming has been selling those securities for months, turning them into cash.  And somebody knows about it, and knows that that money is hidden here.  Don’t you see?  Your Aunt Cornelia has crabbed the game by coming here.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police that?  Now they think, because you ran away—­”

“Ran away!  The only chance I had was a few hours to myself to try to prove what actually happened.”