"Yes, sir; and your tin box disappeared that day."
"Precisely so; and this bill was in that tin box. Jacob Hasbrook, of Lincolnville, paid me a note. I put the money in the box, intending to take it over to the bank before night, and deposit it the next day. I looked at the bill when I counted the money, and I spoke to Hasbrook about it. I called it the white cross of Denmark then."
"Where did you get it now?" inquired Nellie, her heart in her throat with anxiety.
"Mr. Leach, the sail-maker, paid it to me just before you came into the library."
"Mr. Leach!" exclaimed she, permitting herself to be cheered by a ray of hope that her father was not working up a case against Donald Ramsay.
"Yes; you remember who were in the library on the day I lost the tin box."
"I remember very well; for all of you went out and carried Michael into the house. Besides we talked about the box ever so long. You asked me who had been in the library while you were up stairs; and I told you Mr. Hasbrook, Laud Cavendish, and Don John."
"Precisely so; I remember it all very distinctly. Now, one of the bills that was in that box comes back to me."
"But it was paid to you by Mr. Leach."
"It was; but he had it from Don John half an hour before he paid it to me."