“What business?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You’ll have to tell me,” he insisted, roughly.  “I’m now engaged in looking into my nephew’s affairs.  I want all the information I can get.”

“I can only ask you—­implore you to tell me where he is.”

“I’d like to know, myself,” he retorted, bluntly.  “I’d give considerable to know.  You needn’t look at me as if you think I’m lying!  Now you may as well be frank with me, Miss Kilgour.  I’m going to be frank with you.  I have always found you to be a young woman of prudence and caution.  I’ll take a chance and tell you something which I have been keeping to myself.  I want you to know why you needn’t feel bound to keep any promise you have made to my nephew.  He has played a despicable trick on me, his own uncle, after all the help I have given him.  He practically stole five thousand dollars from me and has run away, and I don’t know where he is.  Now, what have you to tell me?”

“I want to put this in his hands, sir.”  She produced a packet, at which the colonel peered with curiosity.  “You will certainly find out where he is.  I want you to give it to him.”

“Oh, love-letters, eh?”

“No, sir!”

With shaking fingers she untied the cord and displayed the contents.  The packet was money, many bills stacked neatly, and the size of the bundle made the colonel open his eyes very wide.

“We—­I—­we owe it to him, sir.  There are five thousand dollars here.”

“So that’s what he did with my money, eh?  Well, I’ll take it.”

“I don’t think it is your money, Colonel Dodd.  I have good reason to feel sure that it is not.  I have not seen your nephew since the day of the convention, and then only at a distance.  And this money—­it was borrowed a long time ago.”

“Borrowed by whom—­by you?”

“No, sir.  I cannot tell you the circumstances.  I simply want you to give it back to him.  I shall feel that I am released from my obligation.”

“Look here, my dear young woman,” said the colonel, with all his masterful firmness, “there are going to be no more riddles here.  You must tell me the truth.  I must have it—­hear?  Otherwise I shall take steps to make you tell—­and that may not be as confidential as a chat here with me.  I propose to know about my nephew’s affairs, I inform you once again!”

“My mother borrowed this money from him.  She was in trouble.  He helped her.”

“Your mother needs a guardian.  I beg your pardon!  But I thought she had had her lesson once before in her life.  So my nephew loaned money to your mother!  Where did he get that money?”

“I do not—­”

“Hold on!  Wait before you say that, Miss Kilgour.  I’ll not endure falsehoods from anybody just now.  I have been lied to too much lately.  This is a matter of my own nephew.  I command you to tell me the truth.”

She hesitated a long time, her countenance expressing her agony.  “I haven’t any right to betray him, sir.”