“You and Miss Frayne have other bequests than those particular bonds you mentioned?” asked the detective.
“Yes, we have each ten thou’ beside, which was all right of the old lady, eh, Anita?”
“None too much, considering what I have stood from her capricious temper and eccentric ways,” returned the girl.
“Your own temper is none too even,” said Pauline, quietly; “I’d rather you wouldn’t speak ill of my aunt, if you please.”
What might have been a passage at arms was averted by the appearance of a footman with a cablegram.
“It’s from Carr!” exclaimed Pauline, as she tore it open, and read:
Awful news just received. Shall I come home or will you come here? Let Haviland attend all business. Love and sympathy.
Carrington Loria.
“He’s in Cairo,” commented Haviland, looking at the paper; “that’s lucky. If he had been off up the Nile on one of his excavating tours, we mightn’t have had communication for weeks. Well, he practically retains me as business manager, at least for the present. And Lord knows there’s a lot to be done!”
“I don’t understand, Gray, why you look upon Carr as more in authority than I am,” said Pauline, almost petulantly; “I am an equal heir, and, too, I am here, and Carr is the other side of the world.”
“That’s so, Polly. I don’t know why, myself. I suppose because he is the man of the family.”