"I do not deserve this noble forgiveness from you and Nita, but I will do my best to deserve it."
"I am sure you will," was Dorian's hearty reply, for he knew his old friend's sterling worth.
Nita had given the unhappy man such minute directions as to finding the narrow stairway and closed door leading to the gold vault at Gray Gables that he did not think it would be necessary to pull down the old mansion, as he had vowed to do. He confided freely in Dorian and asked him to accompany him on the quest, saying frankly:
"With the gold that Nita saw in the chest I have nothing to do. Doubtless it is the treasure referred to in old Meg's confidences to her son, and of course it belongs to Nita. We must keep the secret of it most carefully until such time as she is ready to take possession of it. But in the woman whose dead body rests unburied in the vault I have a painful interest, the secret of which I will later confide to you. But until her poor bones are laid in the grave and her restless spirit is appeased, I can know no rest or peace."
"Her spirit!" whispered Dorian Mountcastle, in awe.
"Yes, she walks, for I have seen her in the grounds at Gray Gables, and she vanished into air against the basement wall. Poor Pepita, she was trying to lead me to her hiding-place then," groaned Donald Kayne.
"How strange it seems that our chief purpose now is to find and punish the murderer of Farnham, although there is no doubt but that the old villain met a well-deserved fate."
"I believe the guilty party is the wicked old fortune-teller," said Donald Kayne, and Dorian and Captain Van Hise, who were present, agreed with him.
"But we can find neither evidence of her crime nor any motive for it. She has proved, indeed, that she was his lifelong friend," added Dorian dejectedly, for the utter failure to find the least clue to the murderer of Miser Farnham depressed him very much.
He knew how terribly dark was the circumstantial evidence against Nita, and his soul rebelled against the only verdict by which it seemed possible she could escape conviction—emotional insanity.