“You poor, dear girl!” cried Cora, springing up and giving her an impulsive hug. “You’ve had an awful time of it, but we’re going to do our best to straighten things out and make you forget your troubles.”
“Of course we know who the rascal was that threatened you,” said Bess. “It was that man Higby.”
“He was the one,” admitted Nina.
“You say that he used to know you in Roxbury,” put in Belle. “Was he employed in the same store with you?”
“Not only that,” returned Nina, “but he was the man who said that he saw me take the purse!”
“He, of all men!” exclaimed Bess. “When I saw him in the very act of slipping back Cora’s purse after he had taken it!”
“But why should he have tried to put the theft on you rather than anybody else?” asked Belle.
“I think he had a grudge against me,” answered Nina. “He had been too familiar in his manner toward me, and I resented it. He was angry and told me that I would be sorry. But I don’t think that would have been enough to make him go as far as he did. He worked in the same part of the store that I did, and I have thought since that perhaps he took the purse himself. Then, when the search for it was coming close to him, he got scared, and slipped it under my counter so that the blame would fall on me.”
“A cur like that oughtn’t to be allowed to live!” cried Bess in hot indignation.
“Of course, I don’t know that he stole it,” qualified Nina; “but his eagerness to put the matter on some one else makes me think he might have done so. And even if he isn’t a thief, he knew that he was telling a falsehood when he said he saw me take it.”