Ruby's Reward — page 351: what you’re looking at

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

“Perhaps you will be kind enough to explain your- self more fully, sir,’ sneered Mr. Carpenter, with mock politeness, but with his blazing eyes fixed upon Mrs. Gordon. “T intended to do so,” calmly responded Mr, Co- nant, “but I think you will understand the whole matter when I tell you that a conversation which you had with a certain person beneath a tree in your own grounds, one evening not long since, led to the revelation of your wretched plot.’ “Ha! then you have turned traitress after all!” cried Edinund Carpenter, turning fiercely upon Mrs, Gordon, who sat beside Ruby, with downcast eyes and flushed cheeks. “Estelle has told nothing more than she told to- day in the court-room,” Ruby said, rising and laying her hand upon her sister’s shoulders. ‘She has been asked no questions, it was uot necessary. But I overheard the conversation between you, I was sit- ting upon the other side of that great tree, and I heard you tell how you entered her room, and took her diamonds and money; you crept up the lattice outside the balcony, you passed in through the French window, opened her bureau drawer, and se- cured them. And then, from what followed, [learned that youhad sewed the diamonds somewhere into clothing which Mr. Richardson wore that evening he spent at Forestvales You said you had ‘made such a neatjob of your work that he might wear them around for months and never discover them.’ I found them myself, last evening, in the presence of several witnesses, and Mr. Richardson himself does not know even yet where they were concealed, We have not allowed my sister to tell anything, for we know how you forced the knowledge of your wicked plot upon her, and caused her to become an unwill- ing accomplice.”” “But I should have told, Ruby,” interposed Mrs. Gordon, turning, with streaming eyes, to her young sister. ‘I made up my mind yesterday, after becom- ing assured of this man’s treachery against you, that I would confess the whole plot and suffer the con- sequences.” comichooks.com .—_— 4 a = soak sk ee ry