The Secret MarkAn Adventure Story for Girls
She must, sooner or later, return it to him. Perhaps even at this moment he might have a customer for the book. Time lost might mean a sale lost, yet she did not wish to return it, not at this time. She did not wish even so much as to admit that she had the book in her possession. To do so would be to put herself in a position which required further explaining. The book had been carried away from the bookshop. Probably it had been stolen. Had she herself taken it? If not, who then? Where was the culprit? Why should not such a person be punished? These were some of the questions she imagined Frank Morrow asking her, and, for the present, she did not wish to answer them. 
At last, just as the elevator mounted toward the upper floors, she thought she saw a way out. 
"Anyway, I'll try it," she told herself. 
She found Frank Morrow alone in his shop. He glanced up at her from over an ancient volume he had been scanning, then rose to bid her welcome. 
"Well, what will it be to-day?" he smiled. "A folio edition of Shakespeare or only the original manuscript of one of his plays?" 
"Oh," she smiled back, "are there really original manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays?" 
"Not that anyone has ever discovered. But, my young lady, if you chance to come across one, I'll pledge to sell it for you for a million dollars flat and not charge you a cent commission." 
"Oh!" breathed Lucile, "that would be marvelous." 
Then suddenly she remembered her reason for being there. 
"Please may I take a chair?" she asked, her lips aquiver with some new excitement. 
"By all means." Frank Morrow himself sank into a chair. 
"Mr. Morrow," said Lucile, poising on the very edge of the chair while she clasped and unclasped her hands, "if I were to tell you that I know exactly where your book is, the one worth sixteen hundred dollars; the Compleat Angler, what would you say?" 
Frank Morrow let a paperweight he had been toying with crash down upon the top of his desk, yet as he turned to look at her there was no emotion expressed upon his face, a whimsical smile, that was all."I'd say you were a fortunate girl. You probably know I offered a hundred dollar reward for its return. This morning I doubled that."

Lucile's breath came short and quick. She had completely forgotten the reward. She would be justly entitled to it. And what wouldn't two hundred dollars mean to her? Clothes she had longed for but could not afford; leisure for more complete devotion to her studies; all this and much more could be purchased with two hundred dollars.

For a moment she wavered. What was the use? The whole proposition if put fairly to the average person, she knew, would sound absurd. To protect two persons 
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