"I wish it off," the villain laughed, and it joined the growing heap in the feed-bag.
Kathleen, doubly enraged, broke out viciously: "You're a common, sneaking——"
"Ah, turn round!" the man roared, and she obeyed in silence.
Then he explored Mrs. Whitcomb, but with such small reward that he said: "Say, you'd oughter have a pocketbook somewheres. Where's it at?"
Mrs. Whitcomb brushed furiously: "None of your business, you low brute."
"Perdooce, madame," the scoundrel snorted, "perdooce the purse, or I'll hunt for it myself."
Mrs. Whitcomb turned away, and after some management of her skirts, slapped her handbag into the eager palm with a wrathful: "You're no gentleman, sir!"
"If I was, I'd be in Wall Street," he laughed. "Now you can turn round." And when she turned, he saw a bit of chain depending from her back hair. He tugged, and brought away the locket, and with laying the tress on her shoulder, and proceeded to sound Ashton for hidden wealth.
And now Mrs. Temple began to sob, as she parted with an old-fashioned brooch and two old-fashioned rings that had been her little vanities for the quarter of a century and more. The old clergyman could have wept with her at the vandalism. He turned on the wretch with a heartsick appeal: