"Go and mend it then," cried Bella, furiously angry, and only too anxious to drive him away by behaving with aggressive rudeness.
"You alone can mend it." Pence dropped on his knees. "Oh, I implore you to mend it, my Hephzibah! You are to me a Rose of Sharon, a Lily of the Vale."
"Get up, sir, and don't make a fool of yourself."
"Oh, angel of my life, listen to me. Lately I was poor in this world's goods, but now I have gold. Marry me, and let us fly to far lands, and——"
"I thought you were desperately poor," said Bella, suspiciously; "where did you get the money?"
"An aged and God-fearing Christian aunt left it to me," said Pence, dropping his eyes. "It is a small sum, but——"
"One hundred pounds in gold, perhaps?"
Pence rose, as though moved by springs, and his thin white cheeks flushed a deep scarlet. "What do you mean?"
Bella could not have told herself what she meant at the moment. But it had suddenly occurred to her to try and rid herself of this burr by hinting that he had something to do with the robbery, if not with the murder. Under ordinary circumstances she would never have ventured to do this, being a kind-hearted girl; but Pence exasperated her so greatly that she was, on the impulse of the moment, prepared to go to any length to see the last of him. "I mean," she said, in reply to his last question, "that my father had one hundred pounds in gold in his safe."
"You accuse me of——"