“Gone! gone!  Who has it?  Marcia!  Lydia!  Charles!  Who’s got it?  Quick!  The money!  Gone?”

He rushed into the room again, deaf to any reply.  He got upon his hands and knees, looked under the bed, the wardrobe, the dressing-table, the chairs, muttering all the while with a voice like a dying man’s.  He rose up, staggering, and seized Marcia by the arm, who trembled with terror at his ferocity.

“The money!  Give me the money!  You’ve got it!  You know you have!  Give it to me!  Give”—­

“Pray, be calm,” said Mrs. Sandford; “you shall know all about it.”

“I don’t want to know,” he almost screamed; “I want the money, the money!”

Then dropping his voice to a lower key, and with a tone which was meant to be wheedling, he turned to his sister-in-law:—­

“You’ve got it, then?  How you frightened me!  Come, dear sister! don’t trifle with me.  I’m poor, very poor, and the little sum seems large.  Give it to me.  Let me see that it is safe. Dear sister!”

“I haven’t it,” said Mrs. Sandford, “But compose yourself.  You shall know about it.”

He cried audibly, like a sickly child.

“It isn’t gone?  No, you play upon my fears.  Where is the pocket-book?”

“How are you ever going to know, if you won’t hear?” asked Marcia.  “I wouldn’t be so unmanly as to whine so even about a million.”

“No, you think money is as plenty as buttons.  Wait till you starve,—­starve,—­till you beg on a street-crossing.”

“Listen,” said Mrs. Sandford.

“Do, and stop your groaning like a madman,” said Marcia, consolingly.  “When Charles met with his mishap and fell senseless, we asked the officer to carry him up-stairs.  Rather than go up another flight, we had him taken into your chamber.  Your dressing-case lay on the table, in the middle of the room, away from its usual place by the mirror.  The officer at once seized and opened it.  You had carelessly left your money in it.  He was evidently informed of the fact that you had money, and was directed to attach it.  He counted the package before me, and then put it into his pocket.”

During this recital, Mr. Sandford’s breath came quick and his eyes opened wider.  His muscles all at once seemed charged with electricity.  He dashed down-stairs, half-a-dozen steps at a time, and pounced upon unlucky Number Two, who, with the captivated Biddy, was leaning at the parlor-door, listening to the conversation above.  Seizing the officer by the throat, Sandford shouted huskily,—­

“Robber! thief!  Give up that money!  How dare you?  Give it up, I say!”

Number Two could not answer, for his windpipe was mortally squeezed under the iron grip of his adversary; therefore, as the only reply he could make, he commenced the manual exercise right and left, and with such effect, that Sandford loosened his hold and staggered back.

“There!  I guess you’ve got enough on’t.  What ye talkin’ about money?  I a’n’t got any of your money.”