“But that girl!” she hissed through her clinched teeth; “she rejected my brother, and I’m determined she shall be punished for it. Here’s a mortgage on Lakeside,” laying her hand on the paper as she spoke; “Avery bought it to have her in his power, and he told me he’d foreclose and turn them out of house and home if the saucy minx held out against his advances. Now it’s my property, and I mean to foreclose without giving her any alternative; then the place will be mine, and we’ll go there and live. I’ve always had a hankering after it; it’s the prettiest place in all the region round, to my way of thinking.”
“But, Dora, you couldn’t really contemplate so mean, not to say dishonest a procedure?” he exclaimed, in surprise and dismay.
“Dishonest!” she cried, with rising wrath; “where’s the dishonesty? Haven’t I a right to foreclose and sell the property to get my money if they don’t pay up their interest?”
“But they will when we hand them these bills, which we know to have been stolen from them.”
“Hand them the notes and let them know they were found among Avery’s possessions, and have them blackening his character—telling that he was the thief or the receiver, that’s as bad as the thief?” she exclaimed, with fury. “I’ll do no such thing; I’ll defend my brother’s character to the last gasp!” she added, with virtuous indignation.
He turned away and paced the room back and forth for a few moments; then, returning to her side, “Dora,” he said, with unwonted decision, “to keep back these notes from the rightful owners would be as bad as stealing, and I will be no party to any such dishonest dealing.”
“You’ve nothing whatever to do with it,” she interrupted, hotly.
“Unfortunately I have,” he responded, “and I insist on taking to the Heaths this property, which is rightfully theirs. I shall tell them we do not know or understand how these notes happened to be found here among your brother’s papers, and shall try to exact from them a promise not to reveal the fact to any one. I think I shall have no difficulty in persuading them to that.”
“Then we’ll lose the place,” she said, grinding her teeth with rage. “I’ll not consent.”
“We can’t lose what we never owned,” he returned; “and I for one could never enjoy it if gained by means so unfair and cruel.”