Jem gasped. "What a big, big lot of money! It's the reward, isn't it—the reward for the diamond? But you mustn't give it to me."
"It belongs to you. I never had any right to the diamond, for—for I found it on your side of the stake, and buried it in my part of the beach."
THEN JEM WHISPERED: "POOR KIT! BUT I'M GLAD YOU'VE TOLD ME."
After this confession there was dead silence for a moment. Then Jem whispered: "Poor Kit! But I'm glad you've told me."
"So am I; though the beach-combers will hiss me out of their company when they know. Here's the hundred and fifty dollars, however, every penny of it; and you, Eileen, must spend it all for your brother"; and he thrust the greenbacks into that astonished maiden's hands.
But Jemmy protested with all his feeble strength, "I cannot, I will not take it all," he said. "You were the finder, even if it was in my portion of sand. But we will divide, half for you and half for me, and then the other fellows need never know. It shall be our secret." And as he was growing dangerously excited, to this arrangement Kit had to consent.
Before leaving, though, he told the sick boy and his sister of the marvellous cures Dr. Landon was said to have made, and of the fair cripple he had seen in his office, concluding with, "Now, Jem, if you could go to his hospital, mebbe science would work some of those wonders on you."
"Oh, if he could, if he only could!" sighed Eileen.
Hope, however, is a great restorative, and the following day Jem was stronger than he had been for some time, which encouraged Kit to take another trip to New York, where he astonished Dr. Landon by suddenly appearing before him and demanding, "Tell me, sir, is seventy-five dollars enough to put a chap in your hospital and get him cured.'"