Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/201

 with pretty evidences of her affection. But he took her by the hand without a word and led her to a bench.

And when she was seated he sat down beside her. I could not see her face, but I could hear his voice and it was wonderfully kind.

"My child," he said, "there is always one reason, if no other, why good people must not undertake to work with a tool of the devil, and that reason is because they handle it so badly."

He paused and took the gold cross out of his pocket.

"Now here," he continued, "I have had to help somebody out who was the very poorest bungler with a devil's tool. I am not very skilled myself with that sort of an implement, but, dear me, I am not so bad a workman as this person! Let me show you.  The one who got the emeralds out of this cross left the twisted and broken tines to indicate a deliberate criminal act, so I had to grind them off in order that the thing might look like an accident.  That cleared everybody—Mammy Liza, who had no motive for this act, and Edward Duncan, who had."

The girl stood straight up.

"Oh," she said, and her voice was a long shuddering whisper, "no one could think he did it!"

"And why not?" continued my uncle. "He had the opportunity and the motive. He was in the room during your absence, and he needed the money 188