The Dugdale Millions — page 252: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

242 THE DUGDALE MILLIONS, one interested in our affairs is in any way responsible for it, such person can have the satisfaction of feeling that he may have contributed to Bessie’s loss of her fortune.”’ Mrs. Stanton’s face flushed deeply as she encoun- tered Wallis’s dark eyes bent keenly upon her. She was confused, and averted her head. Her manner troubled Wallis. From the beginning, her suspicions as to her aunt’s relation to the matter had been aroused. It was difficult for her to believe that Mrs. Stanton had anything in common with those who had broken into the house. But, as a matter of fact, she did not believe that those who had done so were com- mon burglars. She had given an implicit faith to Dick’s theory, believing in it even more firmly than Dick himself. Therefore, influenced by him to sus- pect Harold Pierson, remembering her aunt’s long and confidential conversation with that young man at Mr. Hetlow’s house on the night of the burglary, the evident agitation of both, and, knowing Mrs. Stan- ton’s absurd and unreasonable jealousy of Mrs. Jen- kins, she had come to believe that in that conversation her aunt had told Harold Pierson that the box had been received that afternoon. She did not believe that her aunt had told this with any view of committing wrong, but she was influenced thereto by the fancy that the box did not contain anything relating to the Dugdale heir- ship, but to the imaginary child she insisted Mr. Stanton was hunting for. Her conclusion had been that her aunt having told of the box, Harold Pierson, becoming alarmed as to the effect its contents might have on him, had resolved upon the desperate means of securing it, by entering the house, having first obtained from her aunt knowledge as to its location, and that Mrs. Stanton, recognizing in the morning the meaning of the burglary, had maintained silence, hoping thereby to conceal the fact that she had in the first instance secreted it. The letter from Mrs. Jen- Comicboolk<s by 3