“My scenario.”
“You don’t mean——”
“I mean I know what has become of it.”
“Never!” gasped Tom. “Are you—are—you——”
“I am not ‘non compos,’ and-so-forth,” laughed Ruth. “Oh, there is nothing foolish about this, Tom. Let me tell you.”
She spoke in so low a tone that the others could not have heard had they desired to. She and Tom put their heads together and within the next few minutes Ruth had told him all about the hermit’s scenario and her conviction that he had stolen his idea and a large part of his story from Ruth’s lost manuscript.
“It seems almost impossible, Ruth,” gasped her friend.
“No. Not impossible or improbable. Listen to what that man on Reef Island told me about this hermit, so-called.” And she repeated it all to the excited Tom. “I am convinced,” pursued Ruth, “that this hermit could easily have been in the vicinity of the Red Mill on the day my manuscript disappeared.”
“But to prove it!” cried Tom.
“We’ll see about that,” said Ruth confidently. “You know, Ben told us he had seen and spoken to a tramp-actor that day. Uncle Jabez saw him, too. And you, Tom, followed his trail to the Cheslow railroad yards.”