“Written for the Syndicate, by
“Mark Flossman.”
“Well, it is a very nice letter, anyhow; and you would surely never hurt their feelings by sending the money back, especially as they are not rich men,” said Mrs. Nichols.
“I did not think of it hurting their feelings; but it is such a dreadful lot of money to take for just nothing. It isn’t even as if the railway people had given it to me,” Nell replied, with visible relenting in her tone.
“The railway people will do something, I have no doubt, when they know that you are compelled to resign because of what happened to you in your efforts to secure them from loss. But even if they had lost everything the big shed contained, they would not have stood to lose so much as the Syndicate did over that bad deal in copper. I guess they will be more careful how they spend their money next time. No wonder they feel so grateful to you for helping them to get their money back.”
“I am glad they did not hurt the poor man when they had him in their power,” Nell said, feeling that nothing would have induced her to take this money if the Syndicate had wreaked some dreadful vengeance on the prisoner.
“So am I, though I must say he got off more lightly than he deserved to do. But you will keep the money, dear, and it may help you to some of that education you are always longing for; although, to my way of thinking, you are already as learned and as ladylike as any one need wish to be.”
“Oh, how perfectly lovely that would be!” cried Nell, ignoring the compliment and thinking only of the possibilities contained in the gift of the Syndicate.
In the end she decided to take the gift in the spirit in which it was offered, and she wrote a graceful little letter of thanks to Mark Flossman; then, in a spirit of flat contradiction, felt fearfully ill used because she had been the innocent means of bringing Dick Brunsen to justice, even though it was rough justice, which showed plainly enough that she did not entirely accept Mrs. Nichols’s theory about the identity of the man whom she had succoured at the Lone House more than a year ago.
The next day she sent in her resignation, accompanied by a note from Dr. Russell, which stated that, owing to the injury to her ear, it would be a long time before she was a safe operator again.