"You haven't been on our side of the wall yet? Well,
I promise not to molest your hidden treasure if you'll
be neighborly."
"I fear there's a big joke involved in the hidden
treasure," I replied. "I'm so busy staying at home to
guard it that I have no time for social recreation."
He looked at me quickly to see whether I was joking.
His eyes were steady and earnest. The Reverend Paul
Stoddard impressed me more and more agreeably.
There was a suggestion of a quiet strength about him
that drew me to him.
"I suppose every one around here thinks of nothing
but that I'm at Glenarm to earn my inheritance. My
residence here must look pretty sordid from the outside."
"Mr. Glenarm's will is a matter of record in the
county, of course. But you are too hard on yourself.
It's nobody's business if your grandfather wished to
visit his whims on you. I should say, in my own case,
that I don't consider it any of my business what you
are here for. I didn't come over to annoy you or to
pry into your affairs. I get lonely now and then, and
thought I'd like to establish neighborly relations."
"Thank you; I appreciate your coming very much,"
-and my heart warmed under the manifest kindness
of the man.
"And I hope"-he spoke for the first time with restraint
-"I hope nothing may prevent your knowing
Sister Theresa and Miss Devereux. They are interesting
and charming-the only women about here of your
own social status."
My liking for him abated slightly. He might be a
detective, representing the alternative heir, for all I
knew, and possibly Sister Theresa was a party to the
conspiracy.
"In time, no doubt, in time, I shall know them," I
answered evasively.
"Oh, quite as you like!"-and he changed the subject.
We talked of many things,-of outdoor sports,
with which he showed great familiarity, of universities,
of travel and adventure. He was a Columbia man and
had spent two years at Oxford.
"Well," he exclaimed, "this has been very pleasant,
but I must run. I have just been over to see Morgan,
the caretaker at the resort village. The poor fellow accidentally
shot himself yesterday, cleaning his gun or
something of that sort, and he has an ugly hole in his
arm that will shut him in for a month or worse. He
gave me an errand to do for him. He's a conscientious
fellow and wished me to wire for him to Mr. Pickering
that he'd been hurt, but was attending to his duties.
Pickering owns a cottage over there, and Morgan has
charge of it. You know Pickering, of course?"
I looked my clerical neighbor straight in the eye, a
trifle coldly perhaps. I was wondering why Morgan,
with whom I had enjoyed a duel in my own cellar only
a few hours before, should be reporting his injury to
Arthur Pickering.