“I suppose so,” she repeated. “Certainly he had the purse.”
“Proof enough, I should say.”
“Yes. Oh, he must have taken it,” she added quickly, with the air of one who was seeking confidence. “But he is a man with a story. He shot his sister some little time ago. On purpose, if you understand.”
Sylvia cried out, but Mrs Brodrick had lived a long life.
“That is very terrible,” she said gravely.
“Terrible. Granny,”—Teresa knelt by her grandmother’s chair—“you know things. Do you believe a man could do that, and afterwards go about the streets picking pockets? He is young, remember. Could he?”
Perhaps Mrs Brodrick’s beliefs reached higher and lower than Teresa’s. She hesitated.
“What did he say about it himself?”
“He said he picked up the purse in the church.”
“Oh, but, Teresa—” cried Sylvia, squeezing her hands together, and tripping over incoherent words, “he—yes—oh, he did! Now I remember looking back just before we went out, and I saw a man stooping down and couldn’t think why. It was—yes, indeed, of course it was—that very man!”