“It isn’t in the book! We—we never looked till to-night, and—what do you think? Somebody got into the house and robbed us—of all that money! And it belonged to Mrs. Eland and her sister. Mr. Lemuel Aden hid it in our garret. Now! isn’t that awful?”
For a minute Neale made no reply. Agnes thought he must be struck actually dumb by the horror and surprise which the announcement caused him. Then he made a funny noise and got up out of the snow. His face was in the shadow.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Agnes.“Didn’t you hear?”
“Yes—I heard,” said Neale, in a peculiar tone. “What did you say about that stuff in the book?”
“Why, Neale! it is good. At least, the money is. Ruth went again to the bank and she is sure she had the right banknote examined this time. And, of course, if one was good the rest were!”
“Ye-es,” said Neale, still speaking oddly. “But what about Mrs. Eland?”
“It belonged to her—all that money—and her sister. You see, Lemuel Aden stayed here at the old Corner House just before he died and he left this book here because he believed it would be safe. He said Uncle Peter was a fool, but honest. Horrid old thing!”
“Who—Uncle Peter?” asked Neale.
“No—Lemuel Aden. And then he went and died and never said anything about the money only in his diary, and Mrs. Eland showed it to Ruth in the diary, and Ruth knew what it meant, but she didn’t tell Mrs. Eland. And now, Neale O’Neil, somebody’s followed you down from that Tiverton place, knowing you had that book, and got into our house and taken all that money—”
“Gee, Aggie!” cried the boy, interrupting the stream of this monologue. “You’ll lose your breath talking so much. Let’s go in and see about this.”