"Yes; as much as you wish."
"I confess to being a bit curious."
"About what?"
"Did Millard—Graves, I mean, have any great reason to need money?
More, I mean, than he could earn by honest work?"
"Yes," admitted Miss Daisy. "My mother is dead. Under her will I inherit a considerable little fortune when I am twenty-five. But it is solely on condition that I have my father's permission to marry the man of my choice. I could remain single until twenty-five, but I am only nineteen, and Mr. Graves complained that it would be an eternity to wait."
"Then your father did not approve Millard? I am going to call him that because the other name is unfamiliar."
"My father feared that Donald was a fortune hunter. He said he would be satisfied if Donald could show that he were rich in his own name."
"So, then, Graves, or Millard, hit upon the plan of stealing our harbor fortification secrets and selling them to another government," said Jack, meditatingly. "Yet I am puzzled to understand how he found the chance. There are no foreigners openly engaged in buying our national secrets."
"I think I can explain all that, though it will be but guess-work," replied Daisy Huston, thoughtfully. "My father was for some years minister to Sweden. He is still well acquainted among foreign diplomats here in Washington. Some of them are often at our house. Donald must have met one there who tempted him, or pointed the way to a fortune. Yes; I am certain that must be the answer."
"Did—but perhaps you don't like my asking such questions?"