Presently he came back.
“The police will be here in a few moments to make a search of the grounds,” he said, “but I doubt whether they will catch the miscreant.”
“Is it possible that it was an accident?” asked the girl.
“Accident?” He smiled. “I think not,” he said dryly. “That kind of accident is liable to happen again. You had better come up to my study, both of you, till the police arrive,” he said and led the way up the stairs.
He did not attempt to support his wife, though her nerve was obviously shaken. Possibly he did not observe this fact until they were in the room, for after a glance at her face he pushed a chair forward.
“Sit down,” he said.
The study was the one room to which his wife was seldom admitted. Dominated as he was by her in other matters, he was firm on this point. It was perhaps something of a novelty for her—a novelty which will still the whimper of the crying child has something of the same effect upon a nervous woman.
The door of the safe was open and the big table was piled high with sealed packages. The only money she saw was a thick pad of bank-notes fastened about with a paper bandage, on which something was written. On this she fixed her eyes. She had never seen so much money in her life, and he must have noticed the attention this display of wealth had created, for he took up the money and slipped it into a large envelope.
“This is your money, Mary,” he beamed over his glasses at the girl.
She was feeling the reaction of her experience now and was trembling in every limb. Yet she thought she recognised in this diversion an attempt on his part to soothe her, and she smiled and tried hard to respond.