But one day, having torn his coat, he brought it to her to mend.
“Mind you do it right away,” he said, “for I’ll have to wear my Sunday one till it’s done. I can’t chop wood in that, so I’ll just step over to Harkness’s to ask what cord wood’s a sellin’ fer now in Prairieville.”
Dropping the coat the moment the door closed on him, Belinda ran to the front window and watched him stealthily as he crossed the yard and went out at the gate; then, hurrying back, she searched the pockets of the coat.
Yes, the key was there. She drew it out with a gleeful laugh. There was nothing she enjoyed with a keener relish than prying into whatever he particularly desired to keep secret from her. First satisfying herself that he had not discovered his loss and turned back to retrieve it, she hastened to make use of this “lucky chance.”
It so happened that the first paper she opened proved to be the one she was in search of. She read enough to make sure of that, gloated for several minutes over rolls of bank-notes and piles of gold and silver coin, feeling strongly tempted to help herself; but deterred by the almost certain conviction that her husband knew to a cent how much was there, she hurriedly shut down the lid, relocked the box, and went back to her work.
Well for her that she did; for scarcely had she taken the first stitch in the garment when the old man rushed in in breathless haste and snatched it from her hands.
“What’s that for?” she asked, her black eyes snapping.
“Have ye been makin’ free with this?” he demanded, shaking the key in her face. “It’ll not be good for ye if ye have.”
“With that?” she cried, in well-feigned surprise. “I only wish I’d knowed it was there. But if you jerk my work out o’ my hands agin, ye may do yer mendin’ yerself.”
He started upon his errand a second time, and only waiting until he was well out of sight, she threw a shawl over her head and ran to the wood, where Phelim’s axe was descending with ringing strokes upon a fallen tree. They ceased at her approach.