"No, Miss. I do not know. Was it lately he lost it?"
"That is what I wish to know. Did he lose it?"
"I couldn't say, Miss. He said nothing about losing it to me."
"Then it is pretty sure he did not lose it before he went away yesterday—if he lost it at all," murmured the young woman thoughtfully. "You would probably have missed it yourself, Jerome."
"I don't know about that, Miss. I don't have much to do with Master Ralph's things. No, Miss. Maybe Mrs. Malloy——"
But the housekeeper knew no more than Jerome. Lorna dared go no further with her inquiries. She feared that she might rouse suspicion in the minds of the servants.
She heard nothing more about the bank burglary that day, or what was being done regarding it. She spent a most miserable night. By morning she could not longer remain idle in the matter. She felt that she must confer with somebody and she started for the Twin Rocks Light. Lorna wanted to learn if Tobias Bassett likewise suspected that the gold penknife he had found belonged to Ralph.
Although the time was mid-forenoon, Tobias was smoking his pipe on the bench outside the lighthouse door. And he wore one of Miss Heppy's voluminous kitchen aprons.
"Why, Mr. Bassett! what is the matter?"
"Oh, sugar! That you, Lorny? I've been promoted to be chief pot-walloper of this here craft. 'Zekiel is aloft, cleaning the lamp."