"There is only one way to explain the facts we have already learned, and the theory we have built up will be a hard one to overthrow.

The flight of Captain Wegg to this place, his unhappy wife, the great trouble that old Nora has hinted at, the--" "The great trouble ought to come first," declared Louise.

"It is the foundation upon which rest all the mysterious occurrences following, and once we have learned what the great trouble was, the rest will be plain sailing." "I agree with you," said Beth; "and perhaps Joseph Wegg will be able to tell us what the trouble was that ruined the lives of his parents, as well as of Old Hucks and his wife, and caused them all to flee here to hide themselves." It was not until the following morning that the Major found an opportunity to give the confederates a solemn wink to indicate he had news to confide to them.

They gathered eagerly on the lawn, and he told them of the finding of Joe Wegg in the isolated cabin, and how old Thomas and Nora, loving the boy as well as if he had been their own child, had sacrificed everything to assist him in his extremity.
"So ye see, my avenging angels, that ye run off the track in the Hucks matter," he added, smiling at their bewildered faces.
Patsy was delighted at this refutation of the slanderous suspicions that Thomas was a miser and his smiling face a mask to hide his innate villainy.

The other girls were somewhat depressed by the overthrow of one of their pet theories, and reluctantly admitted that if Hucks had been the robber of his master and old Will Thompson, he would not have striven so eagerly to get enough money to send to Joe Wegg.