“Of course!” Roy agreed, with a contemptuous inflection. “My personal opinion is that the power of ratiocination is not always what it’s cracked up to be, Billy.”
David, once again, shared the general disbelief.
“No,” he declared, “the idea won’t hold water. There is no way to convey meaning by the score of a musical composition except the emotion that the author has experienced himself, and wishes thus to interpret to his hearers. The old man meant in this case to tell us of the spell that the love of gold lays on the miser. He has done that. Billy was the one who called our attention to the fact. He must be content with that much glory. His other idea was just poppycock.”
Billy Walker was unconvinced.
“I know nothing about music,” he conceded. “But I have the God-given gift of reason, which is not vouchsafed to the brutes—or to all human beings, I regret to say. Reason convinces me that the clue lies somewhere on this sheet. I reaffirm my conclusion. Since I know nothing of music, the remainder of the work must be done by you. It has now become your responsibility. I have done my part.”
The dignity and the earnestness with which this declaration was made impressed the doubters in spite of themselves. When Billy had ceased speaking, they remained silent, vaguely hesitant, though quite unconvinced. Saxe, perhaps, more than either of the others was desirous of accepting Billy’s idea as true, but he was unable to justify it by anything tangible. His was, after all, the chief interest in the issue, and he was eager to seize on even the most meager possibility that offered hope of success. So now, he was anxious to believe, and racked his brain to find some character of subtle significance on the page before him. It was in vain. He could discern nothing beyond the obvious meaning of the score as the symbol of a musical composition.
Thus the matter remained for a week. Billy Walker retained certainty as to the correctness of his judgment; David and Roy maintained their attitude of skepticism; Saxe continued his mood of willingness to believe, along with a total incapacity to find an atom of evidence in support of it. He sat for hours before the manuscript, hoping for some inspiration to come, but his thoughts remained barren. He realized, with poignant regret, that time was slipping away on swiftest wings, yet he felt himself powerless before the problem, on the solving of which his fortune was conditioned.
Nevertheless, not all his time was given to the quest. A part, even the greater part, was bestowed on Margaret West—on her in person, when opportunity served, on her in thought, when absent from her. His failure to make any progress in the search for the treasure would without doubt have caused him vastly more distress of mind, had it not been for the fact that most of his energy was devoted to the girl. Worry over money could not affect him to desperation, when he was constantly titillating over the secret of a maiden’s heart. He was assiduous in his attentions, but he could not win from Margaret any sure indication of preference. She was as amiable as the most exacting lover might require, but she displayed none of that coyness or confusion for which Saxe looked as a sign that her heart was engaged. He did not dare over-much, for the brief length of their acquaintance seemed to forbid. But this restraint caused him torment on account of jealousy, since Masters appeared soon as an open rival in the wooing of the girl. Margaret’s treatment of the engineer was of such a sort that it drove Saxe nearly to desperation. She was unfailingly as amiable to the one as to the other of her suitors. It was, to Saxe, utterly inconceivable that any woman could be guilty of such folly as to love a man like the engineer, yet the girl’s attitude toward Masters filled him with alarm, so that he pressed his own suit with more insistence, and came to hate his adversary exceedingly.
Masters, too, suffered under the curse of jealousy. His love for Margaret was a sincere passion, and the hate Saxe bore for him he returned in overflowing measure. Through all his emotion of love, however, there remained in undiminished vigor his desire to possess himself of the gold hidden by Abernethey. And, presently, there grew in him a desperate resolve, brought into being in part by greed, in part by hatred of his rival.
May Thurston was another in the throes of anguish, and that from no fault of her own. Her love for the engineer had involved her in almost unendurable humiliation. His ostentatious worship of Margaret West at first filled May with the agony of outraged affection, then forced her to the wrath of revolt against such treachery. This mood endured. The little hypocrisies of loving, which Masters attempted on the rare occasions when the two were alone together, did not deceive her in the least. Yet, the final break between the two was delayed for lack of courage on her part to accuse him openly of his guilt. The matter stood thus between them when, one morning after a sleepless night, May got from her bed before sunrise, dressed herself hurriedly, and left the cottage, hoping that the freshness of the dawn might serve to soothe her wearied nerves. She wandered aimlessly hither and yon through the woods bordering the shore, and did indeed win some solace for her soul in the radiance of the summer day. She was about fifty yards distant from the cottage, descending the slope that ran to the shore, when she heard a slight noise among the bushes in front of her. She halted instantly, curious to know what manner of creature might be at hand, and welcoming any distraction from the distress in her heart.