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Page 20
"'What has happened? What have you done?' she persisted, trying to
draw him up on the pillow. He made a motion. It was in the
direction of the front door. 'Don't let her in,' he muttered. 'I
don't trust her, I don't trust her. Let me die in peace.' Then,
as Miss Thankful became conscious of a stir at the front door, and
caught the sound of a key turning in the lock, which could only
betoken the return of the nurse, he raised himself a little and she
saw the wallet hanging out of his dressing gown. 'I have hidden
it,' he whispered, with a nervous look toward the door: 'I was
afraid she might come and take it from me, so I put it in--' He
never said where. His eyes, open and staring straight before him,
took on a look of horror, then slowly glazed under the terrified
glance of Miss Thankful. Death had cut short that vital sentence,
and simultaneously with the entrance of the nurse, whose return he
had so much feared, he uttered his last gasp and sank back lifeless
on his pillow. "With a cry Miss Thankful pounced on the wallet.
It opened out flat in her hand, as empty as her life seemed at that
minute. But she was a brave woman and in another instant her
courage had revived. The money could not be far away; she would
find it at the first search. Turning on the nurse, she looked her
full in the face. The woman was gazing at the empty wallet. 'You
know what was in that?' queried Miss Thankful. A fierce look
answered her. 'A thousand dollars!' announced Miss Thankful. The
nurse's lip curled. 'Oh, you knew that it was five,' was Miss
Thankful's next outburst. Still no answer, but a look which seemed
to devour the empty wallet. This look had its effect. Miss
Thankful dropped her accusatory tone, and attempted cajolery. 'It
was his legacy to us,' she explained. 'He gave it to me just
before he died. You shall be paid out of it. Now will you call my
sister? She's up and with my nephew, who came an hour ago. Call
them both; I am not afraid to remain here for a few moments with my
brother's body.' This appeal, or perhaps the promise, had its
effect. The nurse disappeared, after another careful look at her
patient, and Miss Thankful bounded to her feet and began a hurried
search for the missing bonds. They could not be far away. They
must be in the room, and the room was so nearly empty that it would
take but a moment to penetrate every hiding-place. But alas! the
matter was not so simple as she thought. She looked here, she
looked there; in the bed, in the washstand drawer, under the
cushions of the only chair, even in the grate and up the chimney;
but she found nothing--nothing! She was standing stark and open-
mouthed in the middle of the floor, when the others entered, but
recovered herself at sight of their surprise, and, explaining what
had happened, set them all to search, sister, nephew, even the
nurse, though she was careful to keep close by the latter with a
watchfulness that let no movement escape her. But it was all
fruitless. The bonds were not to be found, either in that room or
in any place near. They ransacked, they rummaged; they went
upstairs, they went down; they searched every likely and every
unlikely place of concealment, but without avail. They failed to
come upon the place where he had hidden them; nor did Miss Thankful
or her sister ever see them again from that day to this."
"Oh!" I exclaimed; "and the nephew? the nurse?"
"Both went away disappointed; he to face his disgrace about which
his aunts were very reticent, and she to seek work which was all
the more necessary to her, since she had lost her pay, with the
disappearance of these bonds, whose value I have no doubt she knew
and calculated on."
"And the aunts, the two poor old creatures who stare all day out of
their upper window at these walls, still believe that money to be
here," I cried.
"Yes, that is their mania. Several tenants have occupied these
premises--tenants who have not stayed long, but who certainly
filled all the rooms, and must have penetrated every secret spot
the house contains, but it has made no difference to them. They
believe the bonds to be still lying in some out-of-the-way place in
these old walls, and are jealous of any one who comes in here.
This you can understand better when I tell you that one feature of
their mania is this: they have lost all sense of time. It is two
years since their brother died, yet to them it is an affair of
yesterday. They showed this when they talked to me. What they
wanted was for me to give up these bonds to them as soon as I found
them. They seemed to think that I might run across them in
settling, and made me promise to wake them day or night if I came
across them unexpectedly."
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