Finally, she explained, matters reached a point where she could get no more work, and she had to appeal to her brother. She had refrained from doing that fearing she might be traced through him, for she still feared she would be arrested for the crime she had never committed. But, growing desperate, she made the night appointment with her brother, hiring a boy to leave the note at the lighthouse, intending to explain matters to Mr. Haley, get some money, and go away again.
But it all ended happily.
“And so they caught Cross?” remarked Jack.
“Yes,” said the lawyer, “one of the private detectives got a clue and followed it up. They got his crony, too, the other man who came in the office when you ran out, Nancy. And they both confessed, after pressure was brought to bear on them. It is not the first crime Cross has been guilty of. He has a bad record, I am told. I learned of his arrest after I started here this morning, following your telegram,” he said to Cora, for, on learning of the arrival of Mrs. Raymond, Cora had wired to her mother’s lawyer to come in haste.
“Then my name is cleared?” asked Mrs. Raymond.
“Absolutely,” answered Mr. Beacon. “You will not even have to appear in court.”
“I wish I didn’t have to,” said Nancy, nervously.
“I can arrange to have a private hearing,” went on the lawyer. “It will be no ordeal at all.”
Nor did Nancy find it so. A kindly judge in his chambers, several days later, listened to the story, and named Mr. Beacon as guardian of Nancy Ford, whose property was, in the main, saved from the clutches of Mr. Cross. He had embezzled some of it, and that crime, with others, brought him severe punishment.
As for Mrs. Raymond, she went to live with her brother in the lighthouse.