Mr. Mudge informed us that he did not intend to arrest Polo immediately, but merely to have her “shadowed,” which meant that all her habits and those of her friends and relatives were to be ascertained and every movement watched.
“You will not hurt her feelings by letting her know that you suspect her?” Milly begged, and Mr. Mudge assured her that such a thing was furthest from his intention, and in his turn he urged us not to allow Polo to imagine that we suspected her.
“We can’t let her see that,” Winnie replied, “since we do not suspect her in the least.”
Mr. Mudge coughed. “I hope your confidence will be proved to be not misplaced,” he replied; “but Miss Noakes does not share it, and I deem Miss Noakes to be a very discriminating woman.”
He bowed stiffly, and for that day the conference was ended. Cynthia retired to her room, and shut the door with a bang. Milly threw herself into Winnie’s arms, and Winnie caressed her and cried over her in mingled happiness and remorse—joy that Milly had been proved innocent, and repentance that she had ever doubted her.
“Oh! my darling, my darling,” she sobbed; “can you ever forgive me for believing you capable of so dreadful a thing? I could not blame you if you refused to ever speak to me again.”
“Don’t feel so badly,” Milly pleaded. “Appearances were awfully against me, and if papa had not come and helped me out just in the nick of time, I don’t know what I might have been tempted to do. I have been so bad, Winnie, that I am very humble. I shall never say I never could have done such a thing, for I cannot know what the temptation might have been. I am almost glad that you believed me so wicked, because it shows me that you would have stood by me even then. I am going to try to be a better girl for this experience, and worthier of your love.”
Adelaide and I retired discretely, and talked over the new aspects of the second robbery. The trust funds must be made up between us. To help do this I subscribed the twenty dollars which Winnie had given me on my birthday, and which fortunately had been placed in my portfolio before we had regained our confidence in the cabinet, and had never been transferred to my compartment. As the other girls had not suffered this time, they made up the amount, though it necessitated considerable self-denial. It took some time for Milly to become accustomed to properly dividing her spending money, so that she need not come short before the date for receiving her allowance, but the practice was good for her and in the end she became an excellent manager.
One peculiar circumstance in regard to this robbery was remarked by Winnie—the fact that on both occasions money had only been taken from my shelf. It was true that Adelaide and Milly had each lost fifty dollars the first night, but not until it had been taken by Milly from their hoards and placed with mine.
“It would seem,” said Adelaide, “as if the thief had a special grudge against Tib; a determination that she shall not save up enough to go to Europe next year.”