Belinda awaited with a quaking heart the result of his examination. What if she had unwittingly disarranged the papers! What might he not do to her in his fury if such were the case!
It seemed a long while that he was there. Evidently he must be counting his money. How glad she was that she had resisted the temptation to take a little! At last he came out with a satisfied, triumphant look that banished her fears.
Early the next week Phelim O’Rourke returned to Prairieville, the time of his engagement with Mr. Himes having expired.
CHAPTER IX.
“Why! why! why! what’s the meaning of all this?” cried Mr. Himes, in tones of mingled anger, amazement, and rebuke; “did you actually go to bed leaving this outside door open, Belindy?”
It was early in the morning, some two or three weeks after the events related in our last chapter, and the two had but just risen to begin the new day.
“Me? Of course not!” returned the wife, in indignant surprise not unmingled with fright, running out, only half dressed as she was, to find her husband standing on the kitchen hearth, gazing in open-mouthed astonishment at the wide-open door.
He turned angrily upon her. “You must have done it; you was the last to go to bed.”
“Ketch me at it!” she said. “I’m too much afraid o’ them burglars by a great deal.”