"Say—that's some money! Ain't they beauties?"
Keralio made an impatient gesture and, taking off his coat, made a gesture to his companion to do likewise.
"Come—there's no time to talk. We must get rid of it all before morning. For all I know the detectives may be watching the house now."
CHAPTER XVII
"I'm sure it was Mary," exclaimed Ray positively. "I never did like the girl. She was sullen and vicious and would stop at nothing to get even with us for discharging her."
"Perhaps you are right," said Helen, "although it is hard to believe that a woman would do such a cruel thing to a mother. Just imagine how worried I was all the way to Philadelphia, only to find when I got there that no message had been sent, and Dorothy was perfectly well."
It was evening. The two women were sitting alone in the library on the second floor, Ray busy at her trousseau, Helen helping her with a piece of embroidery. The master of the house was absent, as usual. He had not come home to dinner, having telephoned at the last minute that he was detained at the club, a thing of such common occurrence since his return from South Africa that Helen had come to accept it as a matter of course. Indeed, things had come to such a pass that she rather welcomed his absence. She preferred the sweet, amiable companionship of her little sister to that of a man who had suddenly become exacting, over-bearing and quarrelsome.
"Why don't you let Dorothy come home?" asked Ray. "Then you wouldn't have this constant worry about her."
"I think I will, now that we are more settled and things are quieter. I wrote to auntie to-day that I might go to Philadelphia one day next week to bring her home. You are right. I shall not be happy until she's with me. I have such terrible dreams about her. If anything were to happen that child, I think it would kill me."