"Who—tole yo?" he asked vaguely, hoping by the question to clarify the moment's confusion.
"Molly, she don' keep her eye on him fo' years! It's under a stone beyond the Branch—dollars and dollars while we-all done without."
"Whar did he—get it?"
"He only gave us part of what he earned—he made us-all fools while he hid the rest."
This was too bewildering for Martin and he looked helplessly at the girl who had been informer. The bold little face of Molly confronted him with something like fear in it.
"He'll sho' kill me!" she whined, "him and that—that Cynthia Walden."
This latter betrayal was new to Mary Morley and she came forward angrily.
"None of your lying!" she commanded—"nobody's going to hurt you so long as you tell the truth. What has the Walden girl got to do with the stolen money?"
"She watched it! She licked me right smart once because I—tried to find out how much there was. She told me she'd kill me sho' if I let on and I ain't till to-day when ma said she'd send me down to Miss Lowe's to larn things if she only had money to buy me some shoes. Why should Sandy have that money and me no shoes?"
Why he yearned to lay the lash on the girl before him, Martin could not tell, but she filled him with savage anger. She looked so mean, so hard and—young! Then he tried to think it was Sandy with whom he was angered. He had left the boy to his own devices, to be sure, but—hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him.