"What's this got to do with it?" he asked, almost petulantly. "This is to you—this is your money."
"It's my money tonight. The question is, how can we make it Major Dudley's money without them, or anyone else, suspecting anything?"
Tom's mouth came open, and he lifted baffled eyes to the face before him.
"You mean—this money—what do you mean, anyway, doctor?"
Glenning merely repeated his last speech, enunciating it more clearly.
Dillard sank back in his chair, a nerveless mass.
"You mean you're goin' to give them this money!" he gasped; "this little fortune!"
John's arm shot out across the table, and his slim fingers twined about the soft hand which lay there, inert.
"See here, Tom Dillard!" he said, earnestly. "You say you are a friend to these people. I believe you, or I'd never have taken you into my confidence. I'm their friend, too, and Fate has said that I shall be the one to bring relief to them in their present predicament. Promise me to work with me, now, to the perfecting of some plan, and to keep all this a secret to your dying day! Promise, boy, and then we'll plot!"
"Yes, I promise!" replied Dillard, in an awed voice. "But are you sick, or crazy, or—"