Cyril looked hopelessly up to the blue sky. "Heaven only knows! The first thing to be done is to find my father and see if they are in his possession. And now that we are parting, Bella, and you feel better, I don't mind telling you that I don't think my father will give them up—if indeed he has them."
"But to me, his son's future wife——"
"My father is quite unbiassed by sentimental considerations," said Cyril very dryly. "What he holds, he keeps. However, there is plenty of time to talk of this matter when we meet my father. Meanwhile, what will you do?"
Bella shook the bundle of papers which she carried. "I am going to my bedroom to read these," she said seriously. "I wish to learn everything that concerns my true parentage. I may have relatives, you know."
"If you have," said Lister emphatically, "I only trust that you will leave them severely alone. I don't care for relatives; they ask everything and give nothing."
"Well," said Bella smiling, for she had quite recovered her spirits, "so long as I have you, I need no sisters or cousins or aunts. Good-bye, dear. No, don't kiss me; someone may be looking on."
"What of that? Everyone knows that we are engaged."
"It doesn't do to emphasise the engagement in public," said the girl seriously, and ran into the cottage. At the door she turned. "I shall tell you all that I read in these papers," she called out, and vanished, while Cyril returned home to think over the strange turn which events had taken. And things were strange, for in striving to solve one mystery they had solved another. In seeking for Huxham's assassin they had found the true father of Bella.
Dora had not yet returned, so Bella, in the seclusion of her bedroom, felt relieved. She did not wish, as yet, to share her secret even with the little school-mistress, good friend as that amiable woman had proved to be. Locking her door she sat down and unrolled the bundle. It consisted of many sheets of foolscap, and appeared to be a kind of rough diary kept by Jabez Huxham, when he was in Africa. The script was in his crooked painful writing, but was legible enough, and after some practice Bella managed to read it fairly easily. Seated on her bed, she perused what was set down, and found the reading extremely interesting.
The sheets seemed to have been torn from a manuscript book, for the diary both commenced and ended abruptly and dealt entirely with Maxwell Faith and his doings. The old pirate had evidently ripped the pages from the diary which he kept and had placed them in the carved chest, which Mrs. Tunks had found in the attic. There also, according to Durgo's story, the jewels had been stored, so apparently Huxham had used the chest—which had belonged to Faith—as a repository for all that concerned the dead trader. But Edwin Lister could scarcely have gone to the garret to seek the chest and get the jewels, since he did not know his way about the old mansion. It was, therefore, evident that Huxham had kept the jewels in his study safe, and had removed the chest containing the torn-out leaves to the attic. Afterwards he had apparently placed the papers in the safe also, where Pence had probably found them. But Bella did not pause to think out these matters. She was to much interested in the story which was set down.