How she hoped to secure Sprague's silence we
can only guess at. Probably she meant to buy it with the remainder of
the $10,000 she had already got from Miles--provided Sprague did not
kill her for ditching him as a lover. We know she foresaw that
possibility, since she willed the money to Lydia. Of course if Sprague
had proved tractable, Nita as Ralph's wife would have been able to
compensate Lydia handsomely for the injury she had done her."
"Poor Nita--and poor Flora!" Sanderson sighed, as he led the way up the
basement stairs. "Hello! Someone's calling you, Bonnie----"
Dundee ran through the kitchen and dining room and into the living room,
for he had recognized Penny Crain's sweet, husky contralto.
"What are _you_ doing back here, young woman?" he demanded. "You were
told to go home and forget all this ugly business----"
"Dad wants a private word with you," Penny explained, her brown eyes
luminous with happiness. "He's on the front porch.... And you ought to
see Mother! She looks like a twenty-year-old bride!"
When Dundee joined him on the porch, Roger Crain flushed painfully but
there was happiness in his eyes, too....
"Serena asked me to thank you for giving her Penny's message to pass
on to me," Crain began in a low voice.
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