A couple of days later, when the Gang came in from lunch, Rhoda handed Patricia an envelope.
“This was left for you this morning,” she explained.
“Thank you, Rhoda,” said Patricia, smiling in her usual friendly fashion; but there was no answering smile on the maid’s grave face.
“What’s the matter with Rhoda?” asked Anne, as they went on down the hall to Patricia’s room.
“I don’t know; she isn’t a bit like herself, and sometimes she looks as if she’d been crying. I wish I knew what’s troubling her.”
“Yes; perhaps we could do something.”
But what was disturbing Rhoda would never be revealed to the inmates of Arnold Hall. Little did they suspect that “Crack” Mayne was their maid’s brother; that he had been the one to rob Mrs. Brock of her money and jewelry; and that, maddened by his sister’s refusal to give him access to the Hall, he had, in a spirit of revenge, set fire to it. That was information which Rhoda would keep strictly to herself. Sorrow for her brother’s violent death was tempered by relief that no longer need she shiver with fear each night as she wondered where he was and what he was doing.
“Open it quick,” begged Anne, when they were safely inside Patricia’s room.
Tearing open the envelope, she drew out a sheet of note paper upon which was written in an old-fashioned cramped hand: “The promised reward for finding my watch.” Inside the double sheet were laid five ten dollar bills.
“Congratulations!” cried Anne, jumping up from the bed and flinging open the door. “Girls,” she called to the corridor at large, “Pat’s got her reward!”