Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/127

 "But what's happened?" "Put your hand inside my coat. Yes, that's the pocket."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Burlingham. "The mortgages!"

"Wall safe in the old storeroom. Happened to remember. All my mother's jewels, too. Pockets filled."

"Who shot you?"

"She did. Plucky, but frightened."

Burlingham groped around for a chair and plumped down into it.

"You infernal jackass!" he gasped. "Edmonds, go get Mrs. Burlingham, and tell her to bring the medicine-chest, lints, and bandages."

"Yes, sir." The butler hurried off as fast as his slipshods would permit.

"You blockhead! Suppose she had killed you?" Burlingham pushed the hair out of his eyes.

"Well, she didn't." Armitage smiled.

"Jim, I always credited you with a normal allotment of brains. This is murderous folly. One of a dozen things might have happened. You might have hurt her."