"No, I'm not! How could my key fit a padlocked book that belonged to prisoners killed by the Indians?"
He held it out to me and I took hold of the padlock. It was a small steel padlock, and the hole looked dangerously the size of my key.
"I can't do it!" I said.
"Let me try," said Johnny Appleseed.
"No! You might break my key in a strange padlock! Hold it still, Johnny. Please don't shake it."
"I'm not shaking it," Johnny Appleseed answered tenderly.
"There's only one way of proving that my key doesn't fit," I said, and thrust it in. The ward turned easily, and the padlock came away in my hand. I dropped it and opened the book. Within the lid a name was written which I had copied a thousand times—"Eagle Madeleine Marie de Ferrier."
Still I did not believe it. Nature protects us in our uttermost losses by a density through which conviction is slow to penetrate. In some mysterious way the padlocked book had fallen into strange hands, and had been carried to America.
"If Eagle were in America, I should know it. For De Chaumont would know it, and Skenedonk would find it out."
I stooped for the padlock, hooked it in place, and locked the book again.