The girl started to go on, but seemed to reject the first wording which occurred to her.
"We did not tell the proprietor that we would surely send it down to his safe, Mr. Preston,"—Mrs. Varris took it up then for the girl, as she watched her kindly. "We were to ring if we decided to send it down. He had given many of us safe-boxes for our personal things. He did not know that I had a good deal of currency besides."
"I know," Preston nodded again. "Only I knew that."
"No, Mr. Preston," the older woman corrected fairly, "many other persons in Ely must have known that I carried a good deal in funds because I tried in town to change it yesterday, you remember."
"Well; at any rate—"
"Just after we came to our rooms, Mr. Preston," the girl took the statement again as the mother hesitated, "we put the money and all our other things into the box. We locked it and rang the bell. Then—
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