“That proves her guilt conclusively, and I told you so. Better see to it at once before she gets away. She ought to be made an example as a warning to the other girls,” and her head and chin and the flabby flesh under it shook as she said it.
“What would you propose if we found the missing articles in her trunk? You would not have her arrested here?” Amy asked.
Her sympathy was a good deal with Sherry, whose look of suffering appealed to her.
“Of course I would not have her arrested, although she deserves it,” Mrs. Groves replied. “Take the things away, and let her know that we all know her for what she is,—a thief!”
The word had an ugly sound to Amy, and still uglier to Alex. when applied to the girl in whom he found he had so great an interest. He fully believed in the sleep-walking, and had hoped that the articles would be returned to the chest, or that Sherry would speak of them. Neither had happened, and urged by Amy he made up his mind to ask her if she ever walked in her sleep.
“It is just to the girl to give her a chance to defend herself against Mrs. Groves, who, I must say, is very bitter against her. I’ll do it,” Alex. said; “but will wait till after lunch, when Craig Saltus will be here. He must know of the girl’s family in Buford, where he has a country house. I’ll ask him about them. Craig always braces me up.”
Craig had written that he would arrive on the eleven o’clock train, but Sherry knew nothing of it till lunch time, when she was rather late at her post. Her head was still aching frightfully with that nausea so hard to bear. Two or three times she had sat down overcome by dizziness before she could rally sufficient strength to go to the dining-room, where the sight and odor of the food nearly overmastered her as she moved slowly up to her table after all were seated, seeing the back of a strange man, but never dreaming who it was until she stood beside him.
“Why, Miss Sherman, you here! This is an unexpected pleasure. Alex. never told me,” Craig exclaimed, offering her his hand, and as quickly as he could, on account of his lameness, getting upon his feet and beginning to pull out the vacant chair next to him.
Then sense and sight for a moment forsook Sherry, who would have fallen if Alex., too, had not risen and taken her arm.
“There is a mistake, and there has been one all the time,” he said to Craig, who was looking at one and then another, but mostly at Sherry, whose white apron and cap struck him at last.