that Goodson made to the stranger."

"It's perfectly true. I feel guilty and ashamed. And you?"

"I'm past it. Let us make a pallet here; we've got to stand watch till
the bank vault opens in the morning and admits the sack. . . Oh dear, oh
dear--if we hadn't made the mistake!"

The pallet was made, and Mary said:

"The open sesame--what could it have been? I do wonder what that remark
could have been. But come; we will get to bed now."

"And sleep?"

"No; think."

"Yes; think."

By this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their
reconciliation, and were turning in--to think, to think, and toss, and
fret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which
Goodson made to the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remark
worth forty thousand dollars, cash.

The reason that the village telegraph-office was open later than usual
that night was this: The foreman of Cox's paper was the local
representative of the Associated Press. One might say its honorary
representative, for it wasn't four times a year that he could furnish
thirty words that would be accepted. But this time it was different.