“Listen, Sally,” said Doris, also shipping her oars and laying an appealing hand on her arm, “I ought to tell you now, and I will. Perhaps you won’t feel the same about it as I do. We can talk that over afterward. But don’t feel so badly about it. Just hear what I have to say first.
“I think there has been some trouble in Miss Camilla’s life,—something she couldn’t tell any one about, and probably connected with that cave. What your grandfather said about her father and brother makes me all the more sure of it. I believe one or the other of them did something wrong,—something connected with money, perhaps, embezzled it or forged checks or something of that kind. And perhaps whoever it was had to hide away and be kept so for a long time, and so that cave was made and he hid there. Don’t you remember, your grandfather said the brother disappeared suddenly and never came back? It must have been he, then. And perhaps Miss Camilla had to sell most of her valuable things and make up what he had done. That would explain her having parted with all her lovely porcelains and china. And if so much of the land around the house once belonged to her, probably that part where the cave is did too.”
“But what about that bit of paper, then?” demanded Sally, who had been drinking in this explanation eagerly. “I don’t see what that would have to do with it.”
“Well, I don’t either,” confessed Doris. “Perhaps it is the plan of the place where something is hidden, but I’m somehow beginning to think it isn’t. I’ll have to think that over later.
“But now, can’t you see that if what I’ve said is right, it wouldn’t be the thing for us to do any more prying into poor Miss Camilla’s secret? It would really be a dreadful thing, especially if she ever suspected that we knew. She probably doesn’t dream that another soul in the world knows of it at all.”
Sally was decidedly impressed with this explanation and argument, but she had one more plea to put forward.
“What you say sounds very true, Doris, and I’ve almost got to believe it, whether I want to or not. But I’m going to ask just one thing. Let’s give our other idea just a trial, anyway. Let’s go there once more and see if that scheme about the floor and the place in the corner is any good. It might be, you know. It sounded awfully good to me. And it won’t hurt a thing for us to try it out. If we don’t find anything, we’ll know there’s nothing in it. And if we do find anything that concerns Miss Camilla, we’ll let it alone and never go near the place again. What do you say?”
Doris thought it over gravely. The argument seemed quite sound, and yet some delicate instinct in her still urged that they should meddle no further. But, after all, she considered, they were sure of nothing. It might have no concern with Miss Camilla at all. And, to crown it, the secret was Sally’s originally, when all was said and done. Who was she, Doris, to dictate what should or should not be done about it? She capitulated.
“All right, Sally,” she agreed. “I believe it can do no harm to try out our original scheme. We’ll get at it first thing tomorrow morning.”