moved a lot of his things over her and I suspected that he had brought back our box—the box that belongs to my family, and I told Bill about it; but Bill is no good. I've been told that he actually talks to old Lemuel Harnway when they meet, and a friend of mine swears he saw Bill and Harnway drinking mint juleps together when that old thief was a senator down in Washington. But you can bet I'd never do it! I've got too much pride for that. Bill and Harnway think the family feud is foolish and done with; but I don't!”
“You don't mean to say that you believe in those old-fashioned feuds sufficiently to wish to kill Mr. Harnway, do you?” he asked, amazed and amused by her vehemence.
“No-o-o,” she admitted with a touch of reluctance, or repulsion, and perhaps relenting a trifle, “I can't say that I'd like to have him killed. That does seem rather foolish. But I'm not going to let him keep that casket that really belongs to us if I can help it. And I'll never, never forgive him for what he said to me, and for laughing at me! The idea of his threatening to spank me”
She stopped, bit her lip and concluded with a gesture of anger.
“I can quite understand your feelings in the matter,” Ware declared, and she turned toward him with quick gratitude.
“I knew you could and would,” she said impulsively. “You see, my intuition about you was right, after all. But I don't know whether I ought to ask you to do anything, even in the way of advice, to help me recover that box.”
“We've sort of—sort of made a compact of friendship, haven't we?” he asked. “Well, friends stick to each other, support each other, and if necessary fight for each other, don't they? That being so, I'm going to help you get that box. Old Lemuel has got to dig up. That is determined.”
“If you help me get that casket,” she exclaimed bending toward him until she was so temptingly near that he could fancy the warm fragrance of her hair and breath were gently wafted by the lazy night breeze across his face, “if you get me that casket”—she repeated—“I'll be your friend for life!”
“Then we have a long friendship ahead of us,” he stoutly asserted. “It seems an absurdly easy way to win it.”
“Not so easy as you might think,” she said dubiously, and then sighed deeply and leaned back into her corner, evidently sobered by recollection. “There are a lot of obstacles in the way. First of all, I'm afraid some one suspects me, because I'm quite certain that a few nights ago when Pietro and I were reconnoitering Harnway's palace a boat followed us.” She hesitated laughed and then added gleefully, “We ran it down and upset it.”
Again he smiled to himself in the darkness, but offered no confession.
“The second great obstacle is that there is a law in Italy, particularly and stringently applied here in Venice, that no art treasures can be taken out of the country without government consent. In fact, they practically confiscate articles of great historical. or artistic value, by reserving the right to purchase. Venice would pay a fortune for that Crusader's Casket, for its history and appearance are thoroughly well known. Why, do you know, there are about a half dozen famous old paintings that have it in the composition, and one by a very distinguished painter, called, 'The Lady and the Casket,' which I believe is a portrait of the wife of one of the old-time doges.”
“So, if we stole it from old Lemuel, we'd then have to turn round and steal it from Venice, then from Italy, eh? Sounds promising,” he remarked.
“It does seem like—like quite a lot of stealing, doesn't it?” she replied, with a sigh of perplexity. “And another feature is that although I can depend on Pietro for the first theft, I'm not so certain that he would care to have the casket leave Venice. He's so frightfully patriotic, so wrapped up in his beloved Venezia that he might at the last moment—well—balk.”
He laughed, amused at her prodigious gravity, and then said, cheerfully, “One thing at a time. Step by step. Perhaps we'll get so accomplished in the art of burglary after out first experience of looting old Lemuel's house that we can find a way to rob Venice with ease.”
“You aren't laughing at me, are you?” she demanded coldly.
“No-o-o; but—by the way, didn't the casket belong to Venice in the first place, and didn't your great-grandfather, Colonel Yancey Powell—didn't he—er—do a little bit in the burglary line himself when he took it?”
“Mr. Ware, I'm afraid I must resent
