"Have you found it?" said the doctor, re-entering the room.
"Found it!" Mrs. Lively snapped out the words, and then her lips shut close together as if with the vehemence of the snapping.
"Perhaps the house was entered last night," suggested the doctor.
"I locked every door and window, and they were all locked this morning when I got up," replied Mrs. Lively. "Perhaps you left the front door open when you went out in the night. I'll warrant you did: it would be just like you."
"I did not leave the door open," replied the doctor. "I found it locked when I got back, and opened it with my night-key. Besides, I was not out of the house more than forty minutes, and you told me when I got back that you hadn't been asleep."
"I told you I had scarcely been asleep," said Mrs. Lively.
All that day the Lively household was in extreme commotion. Every bedstead was stripped naked, and each article of bedding was separately shaken in the middle of the room; the contents of every drawer were turned out; every piece of furniture was moved; every floor was carefully swept. The house, in short, was turned inside out. Advertisements were put in the papers; handsome rewards were offered; the police were notified of the loss. The detectives were of opinion that the house had been entered, but there was not the slightest clew to the burglars.
It was Friday, the sixth of October, when the loss was discovered. On the seventh the house was again looked over, inch by inch.
"You must have put that money somewhere else than in my purse," said Dr. Lively to his wife. "Have you looked in the pockets of all your dresses?"
"Don't say to me again that I didn't put that money in your purse," said Mrs. Lively vehemently: "I won't bear it. You might as well tell me that I don't see you this minute. There never was anything in this world that makes me so tearing mad as to be contradicted about something that I perfectly well know. I'd go into any court and swear that I put that money in your purse; and I don't want to hear any more of your insinuations. Do you think I've stolen the money? You've lost it out of the purse—that's all there is about it. This house has no more been entered than I've been burglaring."