The Dugdale Millions — page 253: what you’re looking at

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

COMPLICATIONS. 242 kins to Dick, transmitting the key, had forced her to the admission of Mrs. Jenkins’s visit, but the box then having disappeared, as the result of her indis- creet revelation to Harold Pierson, she was compelled to deny further knowledge of it than that she had placed it on the library table and forgotten it. In short, she thought her aunt was less guilty than indis- creet, and that the trouble which had followed was the outcome of her absurd jealousy which, up to that time, had been only amusing to Wallis. - Mrs._Stanton, recovering from the confusion into which she had been thrown by Wallis’s barbed speech, replied: ‘““A great deal of unnecessary fuss is made about that box. Your uncle is annoyed only because he thinks he is prevented from finding that child. The woman in ared shawl is the mother of Mrs. Jenkins. I found that out. The affair is much further back than I thought it was.’’ ‘‘Pshaw,’’ cried Wallis contemptuously, and much vexed, ‘‘one would suppose that with the trouble it has led to, you would give up that absurd notion.’’ She turned on her heel and walked away. She went out of the house, going in the direction of ‘The Larches,’’ her purpose being to tell Bessie of the return of the boxes. As she walked along she tried to think of the course she ought to pursue with refer- ence to her aunt’s conduct. She was much perplexed, but her final conclusion was that, were she to tell her suspicions, it would be only to involve her aunt in trouble without leading~-to the restoration of the box. But there was this consideration. Were her suspicions correct, and having concealed the box, had her aunt informed Harold Pierson as to it and could she be forced to admit such to be the case, there would then be certain proof that Harold Pierson was intimately connected with the burglary. Her determination as she reached the house was that she would_say nothing Comicboclk C@© 3}