"Look, mother! look, Hans and Carl—"
But the joy faded out of her face and changed to anxious foreboding as Mrs. Wilton said, brokenly,—
"I am so glad you are come. Send the children away; don't let Reginald come. I want to speak to you alone."
CHAPTER XV.
LOST!
"SEND the children away!" The words recalled that first day of sorrow—eight months before.
"Salome, I have lost the necklet set with emeralds, which really belongs to you. When we first settled in here, I looked over all my personal jewels, and everything was right. This afternoon, when I came in from the vicarage, I opened my large dressing-case to look for a ring I thought I would sell, and the necklet was gone! Salome, do you, can you imagine the Pryors are dishonest?" Salome looked bewildered for a moment, and then the terrible suspicion, which was almost a certainty, flashed upon her. "Salome, do you think the Pryors can have been dishonest? Do you think we are living in a den of thieves? There is no one but Stevens and the Pryors who ever go about the house. It must lie between them."