"Look here, Jo," she said in an odd tone. "I believe this belongs to you!"
Jo gave one look at the box and its contents, then sat down very quietly with it in her lap and began to cry.
Nan and Sadie ran to her in swift sympathy, while the boys looked awkwardly on.
"Don't cry, honey," they coaxed, arms about her. "Don't cry!"
"I—I can't help it! I'm so—so happy." Jo lifted to them a face on which a joyful smile was dawning. "Anyway," she said stoutly, "I'm n-not crying—I'm laughing!"
So it all turned out beautifully after all.
Andrew Simmer and the other man captured by the girls and the boys on the island were hailed into court and there the mystery of their companionship was solved.
The suspicion that Andrew Simmer was not in his right mind when he decamped from Woodford with some vitally important and negotiable papers from his employer's safe in his possession appeared to be well founded.
The tramp, a rough, sly fellow, had come across Simmer just at the time when the latter was in the most acute terror lest his crime be detected. In some way the tramp had succeeded in wresting a confession from the wretched man and had afterward held this over his head as a club, forcing him to commit further robberies in the hope that the first might go undetected.
The black box contained practically all of Mr. Morley's missing papers intact and these, returned to him, put his business once more on a firm foundation.