After some further discussion the matter was settled in this way.

CHAPTER XIV

 What happened at midnight

When Rex and Eva had gone up stairs, and Jess and Roy were left to themselves in the parlor, the brother and sister looked at each other rather soberly for the first few minutes.

“Are you very sleepy, Roy?” asked Jess presently.

She sat by the table still, with that book about criminals open before her, but she had not looked at it for some time now.

“No, not a bit.  Shall I read you something?  There’s that book of Mark Twain’s we haven’t finished yet.”

“I couldn’t put my mind to listen to anything.  I never was so nervous in my life.  And I’m getting worse.”

“There’s really nothing to be nervous about, Jess.  I have no doubt that Mr. Keeler is in bed sound asleep by this time, with no thought of burglarizing the house.”

“I wish I could think so, but I can’t.”

“Think of something else then.  When are we going to leave Marley?”

“The first of September.  The new house is a beauty.  You haven’t seen it yet, have you?”

“No, and I don’t know as I ever want to.”

“Oh come, Roy, it is ridiculous your being so set or staying in Marley.  We can come out here in the summer perhaps, although I’d prefer to go abroad.”

“It must have been nice to live in Europe for a while as Mr. Keeler did, you get so well acquainted with the people.”

“I wonder if they got well acquainted with him,” remarked Jess significantly.

“Oh, I forgot,” returned Roy, and then he remembered what Mr. Keeler had said to him down by the creek about trying to make himself contented with whatever was for the good of the greatest number.

It could not be possible that a man who could give such excellent advice had a record behind him like Martin Blakesley.

“Then you don’t want me to read to you,” Roy added.  “What shall we do then?  What do you say to a game of Authors?”

“All right.  Mr. Keeler isn’t represented, so I guess I can stand it.”

Roy took the cards from the drawer of the bookcase and they began to play.  But Jess’s thoughts wandered and Roy was obliged to remind her to take her turn many times.

Suddenly she held up a finger hushing him to silence.

“Don’t you hear something?” she asked in a tremulous whisper.

“Nothing but the crickets outside and the splash of the water over the dam,” he replied.

“No, it’s something in the house up stairs.  Hear it now; like the creaking of a board.”

Roy did hear it this time plainly.

“It’s Rex or Eva,” he said reassuringly.

“No, it isn’t.  See, it’s nearly midnight.  They were asleep long ago.  Oh, Roy, that man may stop on the way down and murder them both.”