“You must be crazy, Edina—or you haven’t half looked!”
She seized the hand bag from the girl’s nerveless grasp and began to ransack it with eager fingers.
“It’s no use,” said Edina in a dazed voice. “I wrapped the money up in a paper and put it there last night. To-day it’s gone!”
Aware that they were attracting the attention of others in the bank, Billie pulled Edina over to a seat against the wall.
“Here,” she said. “We’ll pull this thing inside out. We have to find the money, Edina.”
The girl nodded dumbly. Tears overflowed from her eyes and ran down her face. Absent-mindedly she wiped them away with the corner of a new silk pocket handkerchief.
Billie dumped the contents of Edina’s hand bag into her lap, scrambling them with eager fingers.
There was a vanity case—a newly acquired luxury, to the buying of which Edina had been egged on by Billie herself. There was a tiny blue-enameled pocket comb, a small purse containing a few pieces of silver, a shopping list, and a roll of bills amounting to ten dollars.
“That’s all mine,” said Edina dully. “The gift money is gone.”
“If you say that once more, I’ll scream,” cried Billie. “Stop crying, Edina, do. You have got to pull yourself together if we are going to work this thing out. Let me think! You say you wrapped the money in a paper late yesterday afternoon?”