“Why, don’t you see,” Ruth hastened to say. “The money belongs to Mr. Aden’s nieces—Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. And they need it so!”
“Oh, my goodness! so it does!”
“And we have lost it!” finished Ruth, in despair.
“Well! they can’t blame us,” Agnes said, swift to be upon the defensive.
“But I blame myself. I should have taken more care of the book, in the first place.”
“Then you don’t blame Neale?” demanded Agnes, quickly.
“He’s to blame for carrying the book off without saying anything about it to us,” said Ruth. “But I am mainly at fault.”
“No,” said Barnabetta suddenly. “I’m to blame. If I had left the book in the bag on the porch, you girls would have found it all right, and the money would not have been stolen.”
“I don’t see how you make that out,” Agnes said. “If the robber found the book in that closet where you hid it, why couldn’t he have found it anywhere else in the house?”
“Perhaps not if I had locked it in the silver safe in the pantry,” Ruth said slowly.