With the girls safe at home the horrible fears that had tortured them all seemed very foolish. The entire family listened with deep interest while Gyp told of that first afternoon when she and Jerry had discovered the secret stairway and of the subsequent meetings of the Ravens in the tower room.

"Please, Uncle Johnny, make Isobel and Graham promise they won't tell _anybody_! It ought to be ours 'cause we found it and we're Westleys,"

begged Gyp.

"Whatever in the world possessed Peter Westley to build a secret stairway in his house?" Mrs. Westley asked John Westley. "Who ever heard of such a thing in this day and age?"

"It's not at all surprising when one recalls how persistently he always avoided people. He planned that as a way of escaping from anyone--even the servants. Can't you picture him grinning down from those windows upon departing callers? Doubtless many a time I've walked away myself, after that man of his told me he couldn't be found."

"I think it's deliciously romantic," exclaimed Isobel, "and I have just as much right to use it as Gyp has."

"My girls--I am afraid the whole matter will have to go to the board of trustees. Remember--Uncle Peter gave Highacres to Lincoln School--we have nothing to say about it."

"Wasn't it _dark_ up there?" asked Graham.

Gyp looked at Jerry and Jerry looked at Gyp. By some process of mental communication they agreed to say nothing about Uncle Peter's ghost. Back here in the softly-lighted, warm living-room, those weird voices and clammy fingers seemed unreal. However, there was the letter--Gyp reached for the Bible.

"We were looking through some books--and we found this." Holding the envelope gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, she handed it to Uncle Johnny.

He read the address, turned the envelope over and over in his hand.

"How strange--it has never been opened. It's addressed to Robert. I'll give it to you." He handed it to Mrs. Westley.

She took it with some of Gyp's reluctance. "It's Uncle Peter's handwriting--but how fresh it looks. It's dated two days before he died, John! I suppose he put it in that Bible and it was never found." She tore the envelope open and spread out the sheets. "It's to both you and Robert--read it."

My Dear Nephews:

It won't be long before I go over the river, and I'm glad--for I am an old man and I've lived my life and I can't do much more, and I'd better be through with it. But I wish I could live long enough to right a few things that are wrong. I mean things that I've done, especially one thing. Lately there isn't much peace of mind for me.

I've tried to find it in the Bible, but though there's a lot about forgiveness I can't figure out what a man ought to do when he's waited almost a lifetime to get it. I've always been hard as rock; I thought a man had to be to make money, but now it all don't seem worth while, for what good is your money when you're old if your conscience is going to torment you?

Right now I'd give half I possessed if I could make up to a young fellow for a contemptible wrong I did him. So I'm writing this to ask you to do it for me, and then I guess I'll rest easier--wherever I am.

Neither of you knew, I suppose, just what made the Westley Cement Mixer a success; it came near not being one. Back there when we were just starting it up, Craig Winton, a young, smart-looking chap, came to me with a mechanical device he'd invented that he believed we needed in our cement-mixing machine. We did--I knew right off that that invention was what we had to have to make our business a success; without it every cent the other stockholders and myself had put into the thing would be lost. I offered the young fellow a paltry amount, and when he wouldn't accept it, I let him go away. Our engineers worked hard to get his idea, but they couldn't. After a few months he came back. He looked ill and he was shabby and low-spirited. I told him we wouldn't give him a cent more, that I didn't think his invention would help us much, and I let him go away again. The directors were all for paying him any amount, but I told them that if we'd wait he'd come back and as good as give the thing to us or I couldn't read signs, for I'd seen something mighty like desperation in the chap's eyes. Even though the directors talked a lot about failure, I thought the gamble was worth a try, and I made them wait. I was right--young Winton came back, looking more like a wreck than ever, and he took just what I offered him, which was a little less than my first price. And I made him sign a paper waiving all future claims on the patents or the stockholders of the firm. That little invention made all our money. But lately I can't get the fellow's eyes out of my mind--they were queer eyes, glowing like they were lighted, and that last time they had a look in them as though something was dead.

I'm too old to face this thing before the world, but I want you to find Craig Winton and give him or his heirs a hundred thousand dollars, which I've figured would be something like his percentage of the profits if I had drawn an honorable contract with him. The time he came to me he lived in Boston. I've always laughed at men that talked about honor in business, but now that I'm looking back from the end of the trail I guess maybe they're right and I've been wrong....

CHAPTER XX

THE FAMILY COUNCILS

Uncle Johnny laid Peter Westley's letter down. A silence held them all; it was as though a voice from some other world had been speaking to them. Mrs. Westley shivered.

"How I hate money," she cried impulsively. Then, the very comfort and luxury of the room reproaching her, she added: "I mean, I hate to think that wherever big fortunes are made so many are ground down in the process."

Graham was frowning at the letter.

"Of course you're going to hunt up this fellow?" he asked, anxiously, a dull red flushing his cheeks. "Wasn't that as bad as stealing?"

"Maybe he's dead now and it's too late," cried Gyp, who thought the whole thing full of intensely interesting possibilities.

"Uncle Peter cannot defend himself, now, Graham, so let us not pass judgment upon what he has done. And I don't suppose I can act on this matter until your father comes home."

"Oh, John, I know he will want to carry out his Uncle Peter's wish! You need not wait; too much time has been lost already," urged Mrs. Westley.

Graham was standing in front of the fire, his back to the blaze. It struck Uncle Johnny and his mother both that there was a new manliness in the slim, straight figure.

"_I_ want to help find him. It's when you know about such tricks and cheating and--and injustice that you hate this trying to make money. I think things ought to be divided up in this world and every fellow given an equal chance."

John Westley laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Real justice is the hardest thing to find in this world, sonny. But keep the thought of it always in your mind--and look out for the rights of the other fellow, then you'll never make the mistakes Uncle Peter did."

"Poor old man, all he cared about in the world was making money, and then in his old age it gave him no joy--only torment. And he'd killed everything else in him that might have brought him a little happiness!

I'm glad you and Robert aren't like him," Mrs. Westley added.

"I am, too," cried Gyp, so fervently that everyone laughed.

"How do you find people?" put in Tibby, who was trying very hard to understand what it was all about.

"It _will_ be somewhat like the needle in the hay-stack. Boston is a big place--and a lot can happen in--let me see, that must have been fifteen years ago."

"Will you hire detectives?" Gyp was quivering with the desire to help hunt down the mysterious Craig Winton.

"I don't want to; I've always had a sort of distrust of detectives and yet we may have to. We have so little to start on. I'll get Stevens and Murray together to-morrow--perhaps they can tell me more about the buying of the patent. And I'll have Watkins recommend some reliable Boston attorney." Uncle John's voice sounded as though he meant business.

Isobel had said nothing during the little family council. She suddenly lifted her head, her eyes dark with disapproval.

"Won't giving this person all that money make _us_ poor?"

Something in her tone sent a little shock through the others.

"My dear----" protested her mother.

"Oh, _you'd_ go on cheating him--just like Uncle Peter! That's like you--just think about yourself," accused Graham, disgustedly.

"Do you _want_ tainted money?" cried Gyp grandly.

Isobel's face flamed. "You're hateful, Graham Westley. I don't like money a bit better than you do--_you'd_ be squealing if you couldn't get that new motorcycle and go to camp and spend all the money you do. And I think it's _silly_ to hunt him up after all this time. He's probably invented a lot of things since and doesn't need any money, and if he hasn't--well, inventors are always poor, anyway." Isobel tried to make her logic sound as reasonable to the others as it did to her.

"Bonnie, dear----" That was the name Uncle Johnny had given to her in nursery days; he had not used it for a long time. "There are two reasons why we must carry out the wish Uncle Peter has expressed in this letter.

One is, because he _has_ asked it. He thought he would have time to give the letter to us himself--perhaps tell us more about it; he did not dream that it would lie for two years in that Bible. The other reason is that it is the honorable thing to do--and it not only involves the honor of Uncle Peter's name but your father's honor and mine--your mother's, yours, Graham's--even little Tibby's. We would do it if it took our last cent. But it won't----"

"Oh, Uncle Johnny, you're great----" Graham suddenly turned his face to the fire to hide his feeling. "When I'm a man I want to be just like you--and father."

Isobel would not let herself be persuaded to accept her family's point of view. In her heart there still rankled the thought that Uncle Johnny had taken Barbara Lee with him to Highacres and had made _her_ stay at home. And it had been silly for them all to get so excited and make such a fuss over Gyp and Jerry--they might have known that they'd turn up all right. When she had seen Uncle Johnny pull Jerry down to a seat beside him on the davenport she had hated her!

Mrs. Westley followed John Westley to the little room that was always called "father's study."