She
came back flushed and a little unsteady on her legs, and gasped out:
"I am sure I recognised him! Last night it seemed to me that maybe I had
seen him somewhere before."
"He is the man that brought the sack here?"
"I am almost sure of it."
"Then he is the ostensible Stephenson too, and sold every important
citizen in this town with his bogus secret. Now if he has sent cheques
instead of money, we are sold too, after we thought we had escaped. I
was beginning to feel fairly comfortable once more, after my night's
rest, but the look of that envelope makes me sick. It isn't fat enough;
$8,500 in even the largest bank-notes makes more bulk than that."
"Edward, why do you object to cheques?"
"Cheques signed by Stephenson! I am resigned to take the $8,500 if it
could come in bank-notes--for it does seem that it was so ordered,
Mary--but I have never had much courage, and I have not the pluck to try
to market a cheque signed with that disastrous name. It would be a trap.
That man tried to catch me; we escaped somehow or other; and now he is
trying a new way. If it is cheques--"
"Oh, Edward, it is _too_ bad!" And she held up the cheques and began to
cry.
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