We kept the scheme quiet until the
route of the new railroad should be decided, and when we came before
the Committee of the House, the whole thing had been given away, and
the Wachusett men had even secured the chairman, Tom Greenfield. He
lives in Fentonville himself, and we had counted him at least as sure."
"That must have been the thing," placidly observed Miss Penwick to
Rangely, "that Mr. Irons was talking to Mrs. Sampson about, the night
we dined there to meet Miss Merrivale."
Rangely glanced up in vexation, to see if Miss Mott were listening, and
caught a gleam of mischievous intelligence from her eyes.
"I don't remember it," he answered ambiguously.
"But how do you know," persisted Edith, "that the information came from
Miss Blake?"
"Because Mr. Staggchase found out at Fentonville afterward that she
came from there, and that a young man she is engaged to had just
forfeited on a mortgage some of the meadows our company was to buy."
"The evidence doesn't seem to me conclusive," remarked Fenton, "and
simply as a matter of family unity I am bound to believe in my wife's
_proteges_."
Even the faint sense of humor which he felt at the situation could not
prevent him from experiencing the sting of self-shame. Had it been an
equal who was unjustly accused of a fault he had committed he would
have felt less humiliated.
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