“So it seems to me if he were alive that he’d be back by this time. And so I was wondering—about those millions,” she went on musingly. “What do you suppose he has done with them?” she asked, with sudden animation, turning full upon him.
“Why, I—I—How should I know?” stuttered Mr. Smith, a swift crimson dyeing his face.
Miss Maggie laughed merrily.
“You wouldn’t, of course—but that needn’t make you look as if I’d intimated that you had them! I was only asking for your opinion, Mr. Smith,” she twinkled, with mischievous eyes.
“Of course!” Mr. Smith laughed now, a little precipitately. “But, indeed, Miss Maggie, you turned so suddenly and the question was so unexpected that I felt like the small boy who, being always blamed for everything at home that went wrong, answered tremblingly, when the teacher sharply demanded, ‘Who made the world?’ ‘Please, ma’am, I did; but I’ll never do it again!’”
“And now,” said Mr. Smith, when Miss Maggie had done laughing at his little story, “suppose I turn the tables on you? What do you think Mr. Fulton has done—with that money?”
“I don’t know what to think.” Miss Maggie shifted her position, her face growing intently interested again. “I’ve been trying to remember what I know of the man.”
“What you—know of him!” cried Mr. Smith, with startled eyes.
“Yes, from the newspaper and magazine accounts of him. Of course, there was quite a lot about him at the time the money came; and Flora let me read some things she’d saved, in years gone. Flora was always interested in him, you know.”
“Well, what did you find?”