"I don't care to answer the question. Ask your uncle."
"A small sum only. It won't be worth your while, Lyman, to plot for its possession."
"Have you no other money?"
"None that you are likely to get hold of. I will save you the trouble of searching the cabin, or prowling round it, by repeating that I have no money concealed here. You know me well enough to know that I am not deceiving you."
Lyman Taylor listened in sullen disappointment. He did know that his uncle's word could be relied upon implicitly, and that the hopes which he had built up of securing a large fund from the uncle he had once robbed, were not destined to be realized.
"It seems you are a pauper, then," he said.
"I have not been compelled to ask for charity yet," answered Anthony. "I live here for next to nothing, and have not suffered yet for the necessities of life."
Lyman Taylor looked around him contemptuously.
"You must have a sweet time living here," he said, "in this lonely old cabin."
"I would not exchange it for the place in which you confess that you have passed the last four years."