The carriage had gone two squares before the silence in it was broken. Then Roy spoke.

"What is it, Syd?" he said. "I am sure you are worrying yourself needlessly over something-- are magnifying it from a molehill into a mountain."

"Needlessly? Oh, boys, would that I were! But as soon as I tell you, you will understand it all. And I shall tell you now-- in a minute. But just give me your hand, each of you, that I may feel the warm pressure of your confidence before-- before you know the worst of me."

Roy and Rex instantly put out their hands. Syd took one in each of his and held them tight for an instant. Then he dropped them quickly and began to speak rapidly.

"Do you remember, Roy, the night last July you went home in Dr. Martin's carriage and left me alone with Mr. Tyler? The will that left all his money to mother had been signed and witnessed; you know what it contained. I felt so rejoiced for you all, although I had no idea then that there was a chance of your so soon coming into possession.

"I sat talking to the old man for an hour or so, about his investments and the various savings banks in which his money was deposited. Finally he appeared to grow restless.

"'Have you got that will I made, Sydney?' he asked.

"I pointed it out to him where it lay on the table.

"'I can make another one, can't I?' he went on.

"'As many as you please,' I told him.

"'Then write out this one and I'll sign it,' he said, and he dictated a document that left every penny of his fortune, except the five thousand to Ann and a thousand he left to you, Roy, to Maurice Darley, if living, or his heirs if dead.

"'You and Ann can witness it,' he told me, and I called her in, and she wrote her name under mine.

"He named myself and Dr. Martin as executors just as before, and said that I could probably find Maurice Darley without much trouble. He turned over in bed then and I asked him where Darley was when he last heard from him, but he did not answer. I went over to the bed and looked at him, and found that he was dead.

"Then the temptation flashed into my mind.

"'What a shame,' I thought, 'that owing to the caprice of a foolish old man these people who have been so good to me should be deprived of the fortune which had just been left to them. This Darley is undoubtedly rich. He has behaved contemptibly to the man who did so much for him. Why should he get the money?'

"Then I recollected that you had gone into the kitchen, Roy, earlier in the evening, to get Ann to sign the first will, and then the doctor had told you that it was not necessary. I reasoned that she would undoubtedly suppose that the will she did sign was the only one that had been made, because I was sure she had not read it.

"All these things flashed into my mind within a few seconds of time as I stood by the bedside of the dead man. My determination was quickly taken. I knew that Ann had gone home, that there was no one near to see the deed.

"I took the new will and held it in the flame of the candle till it was entirely consumed. Then I blew the cinders, so that they scattered about the room and would not attract attention."

"Oh, Syd!" This in a kind of gasp from Roy.

Rex said nothing. He was sitting upright now, still seeming to see before him the face of "No. 131," Mr. Keeler's criminal brother.

"Yes, I knew you would all shrink from me when you knew," went on Sydney. He spoke in a voice that was almost hard now. It was as if it had become so from the spurring that was necessary to enable him to make his confession. "I shrank from myself as soon as the last piece of tinder had vanished from the candlestick. I could not bear to stay in the house. I hurried off to the undertaker's, and then stopped at Dr. Martin's to tell him that the miser was dead.

"He said something about the good fortune that had come to us so quickly. I shuddered and hurried home. But I could not sleep. I seemed to have become an old man in that one instant while I held that sheet of paper in the flame of the ............