For a very unhappy thought had come into Agnes’ mind. Ruth had been so certain that the money and the bonds were good that she might have convinced Neale that evening, when he had come home from Tiverton. Agnes was quite sure he had not considered the printed banking paper worth anything before that time. Had he found a chance to take the book out of the bag and hide it after he had flung himself in anger out of the sitting room?
“I don’t know how he could have done it,” groaned Agnes, to herself. “But why did he come back again that night, if it wasn’t for the album?”
She had to admit that Neale must have been the midnight visitor to the dining room. There was no other explanation of that incident.
Neale had not been to church on Sunday, but she had seen him at school on this day, for he was in her grade; but he had not spoken to her or even looked at her.
Agnes was hurt to the quick by this. She felt that Ruth had been unkind to Neale; but on her part she was sure she was guilty of no unfriendliness.
“He needn’t spit it out on me,” was the way Agnes inelegantly expressed it. “And why did he want to come over here and play burglar Saturday night? And goodness! what did he want in that closet in the dining room chimney?
“He surely wouldn’t want Aunt Sarah’s peppermints,” she giggled. “And what else is there in that cupboard?”
The thought sent Agnes marching into the dining room to look at the locked door. And there stood Barnabetta Scruggs!
Barnabetta was at the door of the closet in the chimney. She did not appear to hear Agnes come into the room. She was closely examining the lock on the closet door.
“What under the sun is she after?” thought Agnes. “What’s that in her hand? A pair of shears?”