"Bob is no thief!" she said bravely. "You ought to be ashamed to say such a thing about him. I know he didn't take your old deed. What earthly use would it be to him? Besides, Bob would never touch a thing that wasn't his!"
"I don't believe he would take anything, Joseph," urged Mrs. Peabody with perfectly amazing temerity. As a rule she took neither side in a controversy. "Besides, as the child says, what good would an unrecorded deed do him? Unless—Joseph, have you bought the Warren lots?"
"You tend to your housework, and I'll manage my own affairs," snapped Peabody, turning a dull brick red, however. "I meant to put the thing in the safety deposit box over to the bank, and then that sick cow took my mind completely off it. If Betty didn't take it, Bob did. It's gone, and they're the only two that could have put hands on it."
"I tell you that I haven't seen the deed," said Betty firmly. "And I am equally certain that Bob never took it. He's the soul of honor, whatever you may think, and he would no more take what wasn't his than he would lie to you about it."
Peabody caught hold of her right hand suddenly.
"What you carrying?" he demanded suspiciously. "A trunk key? Looks mighty funny, doesn't it, to be packing up with something pretty valuable missing? The law would likely give me the right to search your trunk."
"What a dreadful old man you are!" cried Betty, involuntarily, shrinking from the sinister face that grinned malevolently into hers. "You have no right to touch my trunk."
"Well, no call to look like that," muttered Peabody, turning toward the door. "I knew that other young one took it, and I aim to make it hot for him."
"Bob didn't take any deed!" stormed Betty to Mrs. Peabody, her packing forgotten for the moment. "Why does he keep insisting Bob stole it? And why, oh, why did that poorhouse man have to tell where Bob had gone?"
Mrs. Peabody's natural curiosity had to be satisfied, and as it was no longer a secret Betty told her of Lockwood Hale and Bob's determination to find out more about himself.