Finally she decided that she must have passed him in the street in the city some time and resolved to think no more about it.

Eva was pleased with the visitor too.  They had a very merry supper party.  The clash of opinions about what to do with their money was stilled for the time while they all listened to the very entertaining stones told by their guest.

He was, it seemed, on his way home from the oil regions of Pennsylvania whither he had gone to secure the local color for a new story.  In fact he had traveled very extensively in his short life, for he was not yet thirty.

At one time he had lived among a tribe of blacks in Africa; at another been a member of a party of exiled Russians, on tramp to the mines of Siberia.  He was telling of an exciting adventure he had had among the Arabs when the twinkling lights in a train crossed the trestle caused him to come to a sudden pause.

“I must be thinking of the time,” he said taking out his watch, and trying to see the figures on its face by the moonlight.  “I don’t want to miss the last train in to town.”

“Oh, do, please,” pleaded Rex.  “You can stay here just as well as not.  Syd won’t be home and you can have his room.  The last train goes in half an hour; you won’t nearly have exhausted your stock of stories by then.  Please stay.”

“We should be very glad to have you do so, Mr. Keeler,” said Eva.

“But this is trespassing altogether too much on your hospitality,” he returned.  “Besides, you scarcely know me and I didn’t come prepared.  I left Philadelphia this morning, meaning to be back there by night.”

“Oh, we’ll fix you out,” said Rex with an air of finality, “so go on with your Arab story.”

It was most comfortable on that porch with its southern exposure, the fireflies dancing to the chirp of the crickets, the span of the railroad trestle looking like a fairy bridge against the background of the sky.  Mr. Keeler decided to stay.

Roy wondered what the others would think if they knew that their guest was aware of what had recently befallen the family.  He should most decidedly not have told all he had if he had foreseen what was coming.

At ten o’clock Eva suggested that Mr. Keeler was probably tired from his journey, so the boys went up stairs with him.

“I’ll come down and lock up,” Roy called back to his sisters.

When he returned in a few minutes, leaving Rex talking bicycle with their guest, he found the girls standing in the library, over a large book which they had open on the table before them.

“Look there!” exclaimed Jess, almost in a tragic tone, just as he entered.

She was pointing at something in the upper left hand corner of the page.  Eva started as she looked at it and then turned a frightened face toward Roy.

“Roy, come here,” she said.

“Why, what’s the matter with you girls?” he exclaimed.  “You look as if you’d each seen a ghost.”