“Well! what if I did have it? And what if it is good money?” repeated the white-haired boy, still standing as though on the defensive. “Do you think I’d run away with it, Ruth Kenway?”
“You did go away with it, didn’t you?” returned Ruth, a little sharp herself, now. “I have been worried to death.”
“But of course it’s all right,” Agnes hastened to put in, trying to throw oil on the troubled waters. “You brought the old album back with you, didn’t you, Neale?”
“Yes, I did,” Neale admitted. “But I’d like to know what Ruth means by what she says. If there had been a hundred thousand dollars in that book do you s’pose I’d steal it?”
“A hundred thousand dollars!” murmured Agnes. “Oh—dear—me!”
“I didn’t know what to think,” Ruth said slowly. “I have worried—oh! so much!” and she sobbed.
“Because I carried away that old book?” repeated Neale.
“Yes. Oh! it would have been just the same if anybody had carried it off. I don’t know who all that fortune belongs to; but we must take care of it till Mr. Howbridge comes.”
“Oh, my goodness me!” squealed Agnes. “Is it true? Can it be so? All—that—money?”
“I’m sure it isn’t ours,” Ruth said quietly. “Uncle Peter never hid away any such sum. He wasn’t as rich as all that. But we’ve got to give an account of it to somebody.”