"I am so happy for your sake, Mr. Crocker, that he was not discovered."

For my sake! Could she really have meant it, after all? I went to sleep
thinking of that sentence, beside my client beneath the trees. And it
was first in my thoughts when I awoke.

As we dipped our faces in the brook the next morning my client laughed
softly to himself between the gasps, and I knew that he had in mind the
last consummate touch to his successful enterprise. And the revelation
came when the party were assembled at breakfast. Mr. Cooke stood up, and
drawing from his pocket a small and mysterious paper parcel he forthwith
delivered himself in the tone and manner which had so endeared him to the
familiars of the Lake House bar.

"I'm not much for words, as you all know," said he, with becoming
modesty, "and I don't set up to be an orator. I am just what you see
here,--a damned plain man. And there's only one virtue that I lay any
claim to,--no one can say that I ever went back on a friend. I want to
thank all of you (looking at the senator) for what you have done for me
and Allen. It's not for us to talk about that hundred thousand dollars.
--My private opinion is (he seemed to have no scruples about making it
public) that Allen is insane. No, old man, don't interrupt me; but you
haven't acted just right, and that's a fact. And I won't feel square
with myself until I put him where I found him, in safety. I am sorry to
say, my friends," he added, with emotion, "that Mr. Allen is about to
leave us."

He paused for breath, palpably satisfied with so much of it, and with the
effect on his audience.