Both hands clutched her workbag tightly and she cried to Edith: “It is not possible that you think I touched that pocket book?”
Edith replied slowly: “I don’t want to think that, Mahala. But since you’re the only person who’s been in the room, and since every one knows that you’ve been needing money so badly, I should say that, at least, it’s up to you to find it.”
Mahala lifted her head. All the pride of a long race of proud people was in her blood. Her voice was smooth and even as she said: “You’re quite mistaken, Edith. It is not ‘up to me’ to do anything except to receive the pay for the work I have done for you and then to go home.”
Edith’s smile was the most disfiguring her face had ever known. Seeing it, Mahala spoke further.
“We were not in a position to see who might have entered the room while I was working on your waist. If you want to search me, I am perfectly willing that you should satisfy yourself that I have not the pocket book before I leave the house.”
At this unfortunate juncture, Martin Moreland entered the room. Instantly, he sensed the tense situation and began asking questions. Edith reached out her hands to him and began to cry. Immediately, he rushed to Mahala, seized her roughly by the arm, and cried: “You’ll stay right here, my lady, till you’re searched from head to heels. You’ll not leave this house till that pocket book is discovered. It was crammed as full as it would hold with money for this journey.”
Edith immediately chimed in to explain that Junior had said that the purse contained a large amount of money when she had told him to put it with her coat. She had not been sitting where she could see in the other room, but there had been no sound, no one had opened or closed a door, no one had entered the parlour or passed down the hall. The pocket book must be in the room.
During the ensuing discussion, Junior came hurrying in to tell them that time was flying and that they had none to waste. His father and mother and Edith joined in excitedly explaining the situation to him.
Instantly, he went to Mahala, put his arm across her shoulders, and said to her in a voice filled with pity: “My poor little schoolmate, have death and misfortune driven you to this? If you needed money so badly, why didn’t you ask me? You know I would gladly have given it to you.”
Mahala sprang away from him, staring at him with tense, wide eyes.