“For heaven’s sake!” cried the others.
“I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry,” said Billie. “I am sure Pandora’s box didn’t have any more troubles locked inside of it than this one has. What shall I do with it now?”
“Why don’t you tell Miss Campbell all about it?” suggested Elinor, for the second time.
“But, Elinor, it wouldn’t be right,” answered Billie. “Didn’t we give the woman our word of honor, Nancy, that we would keep the box for her until she sent for it, and tell no one? Even you and Mary would not have known about it if you hadn’t attacked Nancy like two wild Comanche Indians and knocked the box open.”
“Don’t you think the woman was crazy, honestly now?” Elinor asked for the hundredth time. This was an old argument between the girls.
“No, I don’t,” answered Billie emphatically.
“She was much too beautiful and fascinating to be crazy,” put in Nancy.
“They are the craziest of all sometimes,” said Elinor.
“But to return to the jewels,” interrupted Mary, the peacemaker. “Did the hotel people send them back?”
“No, that’s the queerest thing of all, and that’s what I’m here for to tell you now. The hotel people wrote me a letter which came this morning, saying that it was believed that the fire had been started by thieves who robbed the safe and that they, therefore, were not responsible for things lost.