Mr. Moreland straightened up.
“Junior,” he said sharply, “we haven’t time for any nonsense of that sort! Get yourself down town by the shortest cut and bring a policeman to search her.”
At this Mahala lifted her head. She said to Mr. Moreland: “No officer shall touch me. If it is your wish that I be searched, you may leave the room and Mrs. Moreland may satisfy herself and Edith that neither the pocket book nor the money is on my person.”
At this juncture Edith began to gasp for breath; then she collapsed on the sofa, declaring that she was dying. Mrs. Moreland spoke authoritatively for the first time: “No one is going to lay a finger on Mahala Spellman in this house,” she said. “Every one of you very well knows that she’s quite incapable of touching anything that doesn’t belong to her. If she says she did not touch that pocket book, she didn’t!”
Then she turned to Mahala and said to her: “Put on your hat, child, take your workbag, and go home.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Moreland,” said Mahala, and she started toward the door.
The elder Moreland stepped in front of her. He had worked himself into a rage. He declared that she should not leave the house carrying three thousand dollars with her. Junior agreed with him.
He said to his father: “This breaks my heart. What a dreadful thing that the loss of her money should have so undermined the principles of such a girl as we always have supposed Mahala to be!”
And then he turned to Mahala in direct appeal. “Mahala,” he begged, “please tell me where the pocket book is and you shall go free. All of us will agree never to mention it. You couldn’t possibly get away with stealing that amount of money.”
He extended his hands to her and pleaded with her to save herself while there was yet time.