"For pity's sake, husband, what's the matter?" cried Mrs. Fairfield.
"It's all gone!" gasped uncle Nathan.
"What's all gone?"
"The money!" he replied in a whisper.
His nature could endure no more. He tottered on his legs, and Levi sprang to his assistance just as he dropped senseless on the floor.
CHAPTER III.
THE HOLE IN THE WALL.
As soon as Dock Vincent and Mat Mogmore had left the house, Mr. Fairfield procured a case-knife,—for he was not the owner of so useful an implement as a screw-driver,—and, with trembling anxiety, removed the board that covered the hole in the wall. Thrusting his hand down into the aperture, a cold chill swept through his frame when he failed to touch the bags in which the gold was contained. With convulsive energy, he felt in every part of the cavity; but the money had surely taken to itself wings and flown away.
Had all the human beings upon the earth been suddenly destroyed before his eyes, the effect upon the miser could not have been more deplorable. He loved his money; he did not love his fellow-beings. His heart almost ceased to beat beneath the shock, his lip quivered, and the tears started in his eyes. His brain began to reel before the blow; he uttered a prolonged howl, and rushed out into the kitchen rather from impulse than because he desired or expected human sympathy.