"Turn him out."

"I could do that, of course. But I think I would rather find out what he
is up to. It has something to do with the old cabinet in the Oak Parlour.
I'll find out the mystery of that if I have to hack the thing into a
thousand pieces. What I hate, is Nance's being mixed up in it."

"We can watch again."

"Yes; we'll do that. In the meanwhile, I am going to investigate that old
ark myself. There's something about, something concealed in it, that he
wants to get. When I took him in there the day after he came, he
couldn't keep his eyes off it. If you can get Nance out of the way
tomorrow afternoon, I'll send the Marquis off with Jesse for that
long-talked-of visit to Mondy Port; and I'll give Jesse instructions not
to get him back before dark. And while they are away, I'll investigate
the Oak Parlour myself. Can you get Nance off?"

"I might ask her to go and look over the Red Farm with me. She might like
the walk through the woods. I could easily manage to be away for three or
four hours."

"Good! You may think it odd, Tom, that I should seem to distrust Nance. I
don't distrust her, but there has always been a mystery about her. Mother
knows a good deal more than she has even been willing to tell to me, or
even to Nance, I guess. I know nothing except that she is of French
extraction, and I have sometimes wondered since she has been so often
with the old Marquis this winter, if he didn't know something about her.
It flashed over me to-night as I saw them in that deserted room. Whatever