Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/56

 had shot Goles? She wondered if she had shot the man who made away with Goles?

More than these things, she wondered where her own position would be, for as she looked the papers over she discovered another item of news that had run through several days of interest and wonder for the reporters and editors—a pretty, prepossessing telephone girl had dropped out of sight in Cincinnati on the very day that Obert Goles had disappeared.

Something like a thrill of fear, of terror, swept over the mind of Delia. The coincidence would be hard to explain.

"Suppose they should think something. Suppose I went back with these diamonds. What'd they say to me?" she whispered to herself.

She pondered on many things.

That other river tripper, whom she had shot overboard, and whose possessions she had fallen heir to, was a better river traveller than herself. She had been satisfied with the pretty and well-built shantyboat. Yet a great deal was lacking when she was most comfortable—paradoxical as that seemed. Her lack of knowledge vexed her very much. She had believed that she would not care where she was, and that she would not want to know where she was.

Nevertheless, she knew that this was the reach below Hickman and the most interesting and valuable