“It was just the same amount as was paid Ephraim Earle for his invention a few days before we saw the last of him.”
“Lord-a-mercy!”
“And which——”
“Now this is too interesting for anything,” exclaimed a female voice from a window overhead. “Twenty thousand dollars, really? What a romance. I must run and see Polly this minute.”
“Stop her!” came in guttural command from the landlord to his wife.
“And why should I stop her?” asked that good woman, with a jolly roll of her head. “Instead of stopping her, I think I will go with her. But do let us hear more about it first. What was the name of the man who left her this splendid fortune?”
“Abram Hazlitt. Somebody who lived out west.”
From the looks that flew from one to the other and from the doubtful shakes of the head visible on every side, this was, as the speaker had declared, an utterly unknown name. The interest became intense.
“I always thought there was something wrong about Ephraim’s disappearance. No man as good as he would have left a child like that of his own free will.”
“What! do you think this man Hazlitt had anything to do——”