"Joyce!" called Billy. There was no reply. Then the boy opened the door leading into the lean-to. He had no reverence for retreats. If any door opened to Billy's hand, Billy's feet carried him further.
A fresh fire also blazed on the hearth of Gaston's sanctuary.
All at once Billy's childhood rose supreme over his recently gained moral viewpoint. Ever since he and the other St. Angé children had spied upon Gaston as a stranger, Gaston's possessions had filled their souls with curious wonder.
Maggie was responsible for the story about a certain chest.
"It's as big"—here Maggie had stretched truth to the snapping point—"as this! And it's all thick with iron strips, and it has a lock as big as my head. Once I saw him open it—I was in the next room—"
"What was in it?" St. Angé youth whispered.
"That's telling," Maggie had sniffed.
But after all the earthly wealth that St. Angé greed then held in the way of strings, old postage stamps, etc., had been laid at her feet, Maggie revealed what she had not seen.
"There's hundreds of dollars of gold. Umph! And candy and—and"—Maggie's imagination in those days had been awakened by Gaston's fairy-lore—"and a box tied up with a blood-stained cord! And a gun, and a knife, with queer spots on it, and things that made me turn sick as I looked!"
As Billy viewed the chest now—somewhat dwindled as to size—the old story moved him.